I would like to see the most flexible attribution rules possible (just the
Article Title, Wikipedia perhaps). If Geni's adamance regarding strict terms
of attribution is a correct interpretation of the CC-BY-SA then I can't see
it as being the correct license for the projects. Where is the CC-Wiki
license? We have tremendous goodwill with both the FSF and CC, surely we can
get our own license that applies specifically to the problems that wikis
face and other content mediums do not.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:32 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2009/2/3 Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Since Robert raised the question where we stand
and what our timeline
looks like, I want to briefly recap:
* Because the attribution issue is quite divisive, I want us to
dedicate some more time to reconsidering and revising our approach.
* I'm developing a simple LimeSurvey-based survey to get a feel on
prevalent opinions regarding some of the attribution-relevant
questions from a sample of contributors.
Copyright law and the terms of CC-BY-SA are not subject to community
opinion.
Even on
the attribution question, it seems that there is
wide agreement that
for online re-use, hyperlinks to a page history or author credit page
are an appropriate mechanism for attribution. It's sensible to me, and
apparently most people, that other people's web use should be treated
very similarly to our own.
As long as the credit page is hosted locally this would generally be
the case online yes.
The fundamentally divisive question is whether
principles of web use
can be applied to some of the other real world use scenarios we've
encountered: DVD, print, spoken versions, etc.
I think you are confused over what the principles of web use actually are.
An important counterpoint is that these media are
among the ones which
are the most important to reach disadvantaged communities - people
without Internet access, blind users, etc. - and that any onerous
requirements are arguably going to diminish our ability to spread free
knowledge. So, there are moral arguments on both sides. Moreover, as
I've noted, many names only really have meaning in the context of web
presence in the first place.
This isn't relevant to the legal position.
commit us to work
together to provide attribution records of manageable length using
smart algorithms as well as documenting minimally complex attribution
implementation,
Knocking out most of the bot flagged names (ram-bot probably qualifies
for credit although there are some complications there) and any edit
summery that mentions AWB would probably take care of that issue on
en.
and permit by-URL attribution in circumstances
where
we don't have a better answer yet.
Again this isn't legal.
I worry, in this scenario, about
instruction and complexity creep over time, so the fundamental
principles of simplicity would need to be articulated well.
"reasonable to the medium or means" you cannot go beyond that. About
the only thing you can do to enforce simplicity beyond the terms of
the license is to ban copyright notices (as in that unfortunate "keep
intact all copyright notices for the Work" statement).
And I want
to make sure that we don't embark on a compromise which achieves
nothing: that the vocal minority who feel very strongly about
attribution-by-name under all circumstances will continue to object,
that we will increase complexity for re-users, and that we will not
actually persuade anyone to support the approach who wouldn't
otherwise do so.
You are optimistic. They could just sue the first refuser to think
that any statements beyond "reasonable to the medium or means" had any
legal validity.
--
geni
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