On 5/1/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Derivative works are by no means essential for Wikisource.
I disagree. A document that cannot legally be translated, for instance, cannot be called a free document. Wikisource is, by definition and philosophy, a repository of free works, similar to what Commons provides for non-textual materials. If you use the logic "but the document is important", you are on a slippery slope of changing Wikisource into a repository for materials under _any_ license which allows free downloads, including "permission granted to Wikimedia" and similar non-free arrangement.
The fact that we cannot translate a work for the French Wikisource does not lessen the value to the English Wikisource. There is already a policy in place which allows the works of French writers to treated as public domain in the English Wikisource yet forbidden the French Wikisource per disscusion on this very list.
That's interesting. Could you point me to this policy? I recall the discussion, but not the conclusion.
Erik