A retraction from me? I wasn't aiming my comments toward you whatsoever - I
apologise profusely if it came across as such. I was replying to Moreschi's
statement that "Commons should learn from the English wikipedia and toughen
up". I certainly didn't mean to involve you in the matter and was not
replying to the last sentence in which you were mentioned. Apologies again
if my message seemed to indicate I was!
--Ayelie
(Editor at Large)
******
Thank you. With some of the things that have been said lately, there's no
telling what people will pick up on. I agree that Commons is a much more
relaxed place.
Best regards,
Durova
I note on the current blog post that we've very few comments on the latest
post, and IIRC the one before last was similar. Is the usefulness of the
blog as a tool to promote the fundraiser coming to end-of-life? Or are the
mods being much more selective?
I really like the current post, it makes the case for taking the long view
with Wikipedia and helping the project keep going to create a good record of
events in the future, and allow the library lurkers to slowly dig up the
details to fill out the pre-Wikipedia history.
Shouldn't there be something about EWW up? I only got posters in Dutch for
specific events, but I did put up a couple of the more general English
posters.
Brian McNeil
Hi all,
I would like to give you a pointer to indywikia project. Indywikia is an
open source project that aims to browse wikipedia on an intuitive and
different way! Article's images are displayed in tenths, plus the ones of
related articles, thus one can quickly get an idea what the article is
about, or discover related ones!
Text is split on titles, links, paragraphs blocks. Hope that you will find
the project interesting!
http://indywikia.sourceforge.net
Regards,
Markos Gogoulos
To understand the GNU FDL it is helpful to think on a printed software
handbook. Think on a title page of a software handbook. You cannot
list lots of authors there. Therefore the five main authors rule for
the title page. I cannot see what the equivalent of the title page in
Wikipedia would be.
Wikipedia/WMF is constantly (in bad faith) denying that the version
history is the section history of the GNU FDL. If you are changing a
work you are obliged according the license to update the section
history. The section history is the only place where each author gets
attribution. Think again on a software handbook with single
contributions of a lot of authors. The section history says
* article U (c) by V
* article W (c) by W
and so on.
Each Wikipedian has nothing to do with updating the section history.
But an update is necessary according the license. The logical
conclusion must be that the version history is the section history and
that the "Gentlemen agreement" for online users is invalid because
each re-use has to copy the section history i.e. the version history.
For verbatim copying this is the consequence of the fact that the
section history is part of the document. For modifications see the GNU
FDL:
"Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add
to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there
is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating
the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on
its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as
stated in the previous sentence."
For a comprehensive interpretation of the GNU FDL in German see
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Historiograf/GNU_FDL_Highway_to_Hell_…
Klaus Graf
> It seems the two of you are barking up the same tree. Nowhere does
> Klaus say that the version history is invalid, quite on the contrary.
> He is saying that it _is_ the version history, and therefore that one
> is not allowed to copy Wikipedia material without republishing the
> history page as well.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
Hey. It's a rare event in this list that a responding list member has
understood what was the meaning of a message ... Many thanks (and
sorry for my bad English which might have supported the
misunderstanding).
Klaus Graf
(This is a posting to multiple lists.)
As you've probably read, the Wikimedia Foundation has agreed in
principle to support an update of Wikipedia content from the GFDL to
CC-BY-SA, pending a community approval of such a migration. The FSF
and Creative Commons are supporting us to make this transition
possible.
One open issue is the way both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA deal with
embedded media files like images, sounds, and videos. The FSF
interprets the GFDL so that e.g. a photograph embedded into an article
would require the article to be "copyleft" under the GFDL; Creative
Commons does not interpret CC-BY-SA in this fashion (at least
according to some public statements).
The actual clauses are very similar, however, and I believe what is
really needed is a license that gives authors the choice of "strong
copyleft" for embedded media: the work into which the media are
embedded (whether either work is text, sound, film, a rich media mix,
or whatever) should be licensed under a copyleft license.
Wikimedia could then allow contributors of multimedia to choose this
license, and to change files under the GFDL (as opposed to text) to
it.
>From _my_ point of view, the key requirements are:
* It should apply to any type of embedded media, i.e. not limited just
to photos embedded into text;
* It should, in principle, be very similar to the CC-BY-SA license,
except for its provision on "Collections";
* It should be adaptable to as many legal frameworks as possible;
* IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works
endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be
mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a
license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible.
:-) Perhaps we should have a dedicated mailing list where stakeholders
from multiple projects can discuss it?
Best,
Erik Möller
Member of the Board, Wikimedia Foundation
Thomas Dalton writes:
>> Boy, I sure would hate to be the lawyer who had to explain this point
>> to a judge.
>
> You know, as the person paid to be the legal expert here, it would be
> helpful if you would make straight points as opposed to unhelpful
> rhetoric.
I don't think I signed away my right to express humor or irony when I
signed up with this outfit.
I'm not sure what you mean by "rhetoric" here, since in fact I truly
would hate to be the lawyer who was trying to explain in court how
"raw Wikinews" and how it's different from "editorially checked
Wikinews" and how different theories of liability might apply
depending on which one was at issue, and why it should make a
difference. Not to mention spelling out the operation of flagged
revisions.
I suppose you want me to use smileys when I say something wry or smile
in resigned bemusement. ;)
Anyone familiar with my career knows I've explained difficult and
complex issues in the past, but I think a critical judge would be
impatient with glib distinctions between categories of Wikinews. Make
that doubly impatient if the judge is, say, French.
--Mike
Brian writes:
> I am aware of this. I do not see how something illegal and
> unflagged would
> become the responsibility of an editorial committee or board. The
> point
> would be to say, "Here is *raw* Wikinews", or "Here is editorially
> checked
> Wikinews". The latter being the default for Google and all anonymous
> visitors. Registered users should get a choice which to view. (I am
> not
> aware of technical details of FlaggedRevs).
Boy, I sure would hate to be the lawyer who had to explain this point
to a judge.
--Mike
On Dec 2, 2007 4:52 AM, Javier Candeira <javier(a)candeira.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for
> > media which isn't strong. Does anyone here disagree?
>
> I do, my photos are by-sa but newspaper using them for illustration doesn't
> have to be (that's my intention when licensing, at least them), as long as
> the photos themselves are labeled with the proper attribution and licensing.
Greetings. Why not use the cc-by license instead? It has the same
attribution behavior as cc-by-sa.
Hoi,
When Wikipedia moves to CC-by-sa, it means that all the Wikipedia articles
go to the new license.
It does not necessarily make a difference to the pictures and other material
in Commons as long as the criteria for inclusion in Commons stay the same.
This means that the GFDL will continue to be a valid license for new
material. When people use a Wikipedia article and an accompanying picture is
GFDL then there is basically no issue as it is only when the picture is
lifted from the article that a problem may occur.
With the FSF, the CC and the WMF are agreeing that the GFDL and the CC-by-sa
are compatible, it means that it can be argued that the inclusion of GFDL
material does not negate the provisions of the included material, it is
compatible and the material can be used in a CC-by-sa work. This means to me
that the GFDL material does not lose its license and when material is used
outside of the "compatibility box" it needs to be used in full compliance
with the GFDL license.
As we are in the process of understanding what it means that we move
Wikipedia to another license, it is important to address what it means for
the material in Commons that is explicitly labelled GFDL and the future
material that will be explicitly labelled GFDL. This needs to be addressed
because the alternative would to be that we will at some moment no longer
accept GFDL material and that is to me not a good thing.
Thanks,
GerardM