Hi James and Geni,
On 7/5/06, James Hare wrote:
> If you were to go through with this wiki, you aren't allowed to call it
> Perl-Wikipedia, seeing as "Wikipedia" is a registered trademark.
This was only my initial statement, expressing my personal opinion to the best
of my ability. I personally envision it as Perl-Wikipedia, a merger of two
things that I strongly believe in, but "The Perl Wiki" would not be named
Perl-Wikipedia without The Wikimedia Foundation fully agreeing with the
project, after a good discussion which has only just begun. I'm here to
investigate and discuss good ideas, and I know that I came to the right place
to do that.
On 7/5/06, geni wrote:
> There is a perl wikibook:
>
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Perl
Good pointer, I'll have to look at all of the other Wikimedia content. I'm
used to the encyclopedia which I refer to frequently, and I'll have to look
at the Wikibook as part of the total solution for what I'm trying to get.
Like I said, I know that I came to the right place.
Thanks,
Eric
I do not think it is necessary to comment on whether
the editor had a good idea or not to make the
wikijunior on big cats available for print. It seems
pretty natural to think he made it in good faith. I
did not have the opportunity to see the version, since
it was removed from Lulu site.
Also, unless I am wrong in what defines an "author", I
see not why the Foundation would be listed as a
co-author of the books, or of any wikibooks in the
future.
There is an issue on which I'd like to react though.
Anthony wrote "Distributing content (including in
print form) *is* the
purpose of Wikimedia."
Well.... not exactly.
The bylaws do mention a distribution free of charge,
but it makes no reference on whether it should be
online, on paper, on dvd etc...
The bylaws do not mention a distribution non-free of
charge.
The main page mentions "encouraging the growth,
development and distribution of free, multilingual
content". Note the "encouraging". It means "support",
"help", "initiate"... but not necessarily "do".
It is still unclear to me (and probably to most)
whether *online*, we are hosting or publishing. I
think jurisdiction is messy anyway, so we should
probably claim "hosting" but legally plan to be
qualified "publishing".
However, as soon as we make a DVD or a paper version,
we'll definitly be "publisher". So, with no doubt
enter a certain category, with a certain amount of
legal risks. And a certain amount of benefits. Which
might make the risk worth.
Among benefits, a financial one. It is unclear as of
today whether we are looking for *this* specific
benefit though. *I* am not looking for that benefit
for the Foundation. I do not know if other board
members would.
Another benefit would be to help distribution, for
example in providing all pressed dvd to ship in
certain countries. We could press the DVD and get as
an income exactly what the DVD costs us. This is a
different benefit. And one which might possibly induce
lesser costs in case of a problem.
There is also a certain benefit in terms of image.
*If* we become publishers, we should know why we are
becoming publishers. To make cash ? To improve image ?
To satisfy a sponsor ? To provide kids in schools ?
But in any cases, it is not among goals of the
Foundation to become publishers to make *profit*.
Distributing content in print form *is* not the
purpose of Wikimedia. We may do it. It is not our
declared goal.
Anthere
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This is an idea that has been kicked around, and I want to congratulate
one of the Wikibooks contributors by being bold and actually getting a
print version of Wikibooks content available for purchase from an
"on-line" store. It can be found right now at:
http://www.lulu.com/content/346504
While I admire the effort that this user has put forth to get this put
together, I am concerned that it might affect the tax-exempt status,
especially as this link is found on a Wikimedia website and openly
"advertising" that this content is available for sale. Please see this
page for an example:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior
This is some outstanding content that has been fermenting on Wikibooks
now for over a year and a half, and is really the first fruits of the
Wikijunior sub-project on Wikibooks. This user is also not trying to
make any profit from the sale of this, and is really doing this just as
a public service and going through Lulu Press simply because they are
available.
I am posting this to the wider Wikimedia Foundation List because I think
some guidelines should be developed regarding "official" links on
project pages for commercial content of this nature, and to what extent
the use of the name "Wikimedia Foundation" can be on such content. I'm
also hoping that the legal list will get wind of this and offer a little
bit of input as well in terms of how far can we go before we start to
tread on the non-profit status of the WMF.
Frankly, I'd like to encourage efforts like this, as it really can be
beneficial to spread Wikimedia content beyond the close circle of
internet users we currently have. Wikibooks in particular is moving
strongly in this direction, as we already have a couple dozen PDF files
for Wikibooks that are nearing at least major proofreading stages rather
than content building. It seems logical that an on-line bookstore is
going to happen in one form or another with this content, and many other
users are going to be doing this. Links of this nature should remain
relatively low-key and non-intrusive if you are trying to actually read
the content
The question I pose then is should we push the genie back into the
bottle and stop this kind of linking, or should we as a community
encourage further commercial publication?
Should we allow commercial publication, but not allow links on project
pages to commercial resources of this nature? Be real careful here, as
it does have implications for other Wikimedia projects as well,
including Wikipedia "1.0" suggestions. The GFDL does allow commercial
publication, so the real point is if project pages can be used as links.
Should there be some sort of formal organization, even if just on a
local project level, that should control the content that is published
in this manner? Or should it just be done on an ad-hoc basis as
individual users feel motivated? This is mainly to see how commercial
links are used on Wikimedia project pages, not that any other person can
set up their own website and advertise they have published Wikimedia
content but not have links on project pages. A more formal organization
can help do things like coordinate ISBN numbers and make sure that
profits can be plowed back into the project.
From my understanding of non-profit laws in the USA (IANAL), as long as
we can show a need for the money that is legitimate (staff salaries,
equipment costs, reasonable travel expenses, etc.) fundraisers of this
nature aren't really too much of a problem. Indeed several non-profit
groups have on-line bookstores just for this purpose. Assuming a
runaway success with this sort of sale of content, we would have to do
direct fundraisers less often. I don't think too many people on this
list would complain about that. The only real problem might be apparent
endorsement of a commercial enterprise.
There is a control issue here that does need to be resolved, and that
would be how much control does the WMF want to have directly over this
kind of activity as well? That would also involve the use of Wikimedia
trademarks (aka Wikijunior) and logos.
--
Robert Scott Horning
In a message dated 7/4/2006 2:19:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
wikilegal(a)inbox.org writes:
This is especially true when an
employee of the foundation implies that playing it safe and assuming
the foundation does hold a copyright interest and is a publisher is
somehow a violation of trademark law.
To be perfectly clear, Anthony, I stated that our name (and logo) are
trademarked. That is unquestionable. The books were listed as being created the
Foundation, yet we had no knowledge of it. In other words, the publisher used
our trademarked name on a book without the agreement of the Foundation. While I
am not assuming malicious intent, that is clearly unacceptable. Don't twist
what I said.
Danny
To be perfectly clear, I am *not* opposed to seeing material produced by
Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, or any other project published per se. Nor do
I believe that the person who did this acted in bad faith. I do not.
What I find problematic is as follows:
1. The material is presented as being copyrighted by the Wikimedia
Foundation. It is not.
2. Being copyrighted by the WMF would mean legal liability for the content.
We are not in a position to accept such liability.
3. A third party, Lulu Press, is using the trademarked name of the
Foundation to sell a book. While I believe that they are doing this unwittingly, it
nonetheless infringes on our trademark.
4. All of this is taking place in the midst of negotiations to obtain a
grant to secure more money for the development of the Wikijunior books. One of
the issues being discussed is print. When they come to us and say "But you are
already printing the books," we will look pretty stupid answering "Actually,
we didn't know that."
Of course, I defer to Brad and the other lawyers on the WMF to tell me I am
wrong about this.
Danny
Hello mailing list folks,
I've been thinking about this... it's not really a pressing issue, but how
would the Wikimedia Office handle Office Actions on other projects? As far
as I know, Danny Wool isn't a sysop on Wikinews. Would the developers make
him into an administrator? Or would he make administrators available at the
time do the office's bidding?
--James
The Native Cherokee Language Translation Project has posted XML dumps
against enwiki 07-02-2006 at
ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki
Please feel free to download and review. This translation is using
conjugation, and verb stem decomposition and reconstruction.
Translation runs are posted in Sequoyah Syllabary and text phonetics.
The www.wikigadugi.org website publishes the machine translation to the
general public.
cherokee-syntax-errors-<date>.txt.bz2 - words in Otali dialect not
mappable to the syllabary but displayed in text phonetics in the
translation
phwiki-<date>-pages-articles.xml - text phonetic translation
sylwiki-<date>-pages-articles.xml - Sequoyah Syllabary translation
untranslated-log-<date>.txt.bz2 - words not yet translated or mapped to
a thesaraus for their Cherokee equivalents
The Machine translation is a work in progress.
Jeff Merkey
Hello folks!
BrokenArrow and I have designed three logo proposals for the Toolserver,
which should be included in this mail.
My question is: Can the operators of the Toolserver (and the people who
have accounts on it) use this logos as they are trademarked by the
Foundation or not?
Regards,
Marco
PS: This mail is CC to foundation-l and toolserver-l.
No, are only dialects and Portuguese Wikipedia have a police to support both
variants pacifically, see more about it on
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:LPT (in portuguese)
From: James Hare <messedrocker@...>
Subject: Re: Proposal for Wikipedia in European Portuguese
Newsgroups: gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
Date: 2006-07-03 02:02:25 GMT
>The only reason why I can see two different Portuguese wikis is because the
>two (majority) versions -- European Portuguese and Brazillian Portuguese --
>are very different. Are they?