On 7/4/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin(a)verizon.net> wrote:
Brad Patrick wrote in part:
Licensing others to publish, from
the WMF perspective is not a big step, and is to WMF's great financial
advantage.
snip
Assuming the content must be licensed from the WMF is a violation of the
FDL and it could be argued an attempt to exploit the name brand
recognition of the GNU FDL without meeting the responsibilities of its
use.
I have never suggested such a thing.
It seems pretty easy to me to delineate that the trademarks and logos of
the WMF may be licensed separately for use in
advertising and sales
promotion to any publishing effort using the FDL'ed material in ways
mutually acceptable to the WMF and the publisher. Any customer who
purchased the content could in turn modify the content and the
attributions appropriately and then republish without the use of the WMF
trademarks or logos.
Bingo.
Clearly any licensing arrangement for the trademarks or logos should
include a right to review and cancel the use of the
trademarks and logos
in inappropriate fashions.
It's not extortion of free content. It's being smart about marketing and
endorsements. Managing licenses implies quality control; that is not the
same thing as instituting a requirement for every single book composed of
WMF-project related content.
I wasn't around for Big Cats. Going forward, I hope we can achieve clarity
with minimal transactional friction from the community and publishers. We
aren't here to be obstructionist.
--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf(a)gmail.com
727-231-0101