It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed five a year, or something like that.
Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?
:-)
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@world.std.com alternate: dpbsmith@alum.mit.edu "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
What price? The Charter of Wikimedia states the the purpose of that organization is to "Create and freely distribute a free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world" (Article III). There have been something like $40,000 in donations to date just in the first seven months of the Foundation's existence. http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif
Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or becomes insolvent. Why? Because all the work distributed on all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.
Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site (under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark). If you want to start a homework service using Wikipedia info, go right ahead, but "the price that people pay for Wikipedia" will always be free, there is nothing however stopping someone from starting a homework service that using the Wikipedia database (note the warranty disclaimer notice on each page, however).
Alex756
From: "Daniel P.B.Smith" dpbsmith@world.std.com
It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed five a year, or something like that.
Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?
:-)
I don't think it's necessary to create a fork in order to implement this idea when most responses have been positive. But "Last Call".
Fred
From: "Alex R." alex756@nyc.rr.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:20:51 -0500 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Homework and research direct requests
What price? The Charter of Wikimedia states the the purpose of that organization is to "Create and freely distribute a free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world" (Article III). There have been something like $40,000 in donations to date just in the first seven months of the Foundation's existence. http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif
Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or becomes insolvent. Why? Because all the work distributed on all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.
Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site (under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark). If you want to start a homework service using Wikipedia info, go right ahead, but "the price that people pay for Wikipedia" will always be free, there is nothing however stopping someone from starting a homework service that using the Wikipedia database (note the warranty disclaimer notice on each page, however).
Alex756
From: "Daniel P.B.Smith" dpbsmith@world.std.com
It used to be true, and may still be, that when you bought a print copy of the Britannica and do all the things they want you to do (like subscribing to their yearbook), the price also entitled you to submit a limited number of research requests to the Britannica. You were allowed five a year, or something like that.
Soooooo... by analogy... should the price that people pay for Wikipedia similarly entitle them to a limited number of research requests?
:-)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Alex R. wrote:
Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or becomes insolvent. Why? Because all the work distributed on all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.
Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site (under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark).
That's very fine in theory. The GFDL is only as powerful as the efforts to defend it. Several of our people are watchful of license violations, and are diligent about contacting the violators to settle such problems. There have been many of these violation, but most are resolved amicably.
In the event of an insolvency, the new Forkopedia could freely put its download of Wikipedia on the net with all the GFDL references stripped out, but with its own copyright claim appended on every page. The violation of copyright would be clear, but who would there be to challenge them?
In an insolvency the trademark could lapse. The odd thing could be that because WP has become so well known the trademark would be a valuable commodity. Selling it in those circumstances could very well cure the insolvency problem, but one should not speculate too far about such a pyrrhic victory. :-\
Ec