David Gerard wrote:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud(a)ctelco.net) [050106 22:37]:
While there are families, and certain ethnic
groups who are into this kind
of thing, indeed almost a mass movement, those folks are already doing their
thing in other established venues and may not come over to our new project
in sufficient numbers to make it viable.
How about pointing some of these genealogists at Wikicities, if they're
willing to use GFDL? Then the stuff could be ported to a future Wikipeople
if it looks workable.
Actually, since genealogy focuses almost exclusively on factual
information (family relationships, dates and places of birth, marriage,
death, etc.) the use of a given license is not particularly an issue. At
least under US law, this material is no more susceptible to copyright
than a telephone directory. (The content of written memorials, variously
proposed for inclusion in Wikipeople, would be a different matter legally.)
Besides the fact that "free as in speech" is less applicable, another
challenge for the idea generally is the fact that vast amounts of it are
already available for free (the other kind of freedom), including on the
internet. So while it might fit in with our mission philosophically, the
necessity for us to get involved is much less.
Where information is needed in the genealogical field, it is more often
because it was never generated as public records, or because such
records were destroyed or have yet to be uncovered. And filling these
gaps runs into the "original research" territory that we largely avoid.
--Michael Snow