Hello.
Brion Vibber, the Foundation's Chief Technical Officer said that "Currently, no new wikis will be created until GFDL 1.3 is released.".
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks or maybe few months?
I think that license changing is completely unrelated to the process of creating new wiki projects.
Why new wikis will not be created? Many people are waiting.
Links:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages (see "approved") https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13264 (Opened: 2008-03-06)
oddly I've found this message in my Spam label from Gmail and not at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-April/thread.html
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 2:15 PM, A.M.D.F. amdf00@gmail.com wrote:
Hello.
Brion Vibber, the Foundation's Chief Technical Officer said that "Currently, no new wikis will be created until GFDL 1.3 is released.".
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks or maybe few months?
I think that license changing is completely unrelated to the process of creating new wiki projects.
Why new wikis will not be created? Many people are waiting.
Links:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages (see "approved") https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13264 (Opened: 2008-03-06)
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I found it in my spam label too :-) but it was only sent 2 hours ago, so maybe it will take a little bit to show up in the archives?
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
oddly I've found this message in my Spam label from Gmail and not at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-April/thread.html
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 2:15 PM, A.M.D.F. amdf00@gmail.com wrote:
Hello.
Brion Vibber, the Foundation's Chief Technical Officer said that "Currently, no new wikis will be created until GFDL 1.3 is released.".
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks or maybe few months?
I think that license changing is completely unrelated to the process of creating new wiki projects.
Why new wikis will not be created? Many people are waiting.
Links:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages (see "approved") https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13264 (Opened: 2008-03-06)
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On 4/13/08, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks or maybe few months?
The drafts we've seen of the FDL 1.3, which we have to treat as confidential at this time, require this unusual step. The release of the new license is expected shortly - if things get delayed significantly further, we'll find an alternative solution. I apologize for the inconvenience to the new project communities waiting for wikis to be created.
Since Wikinews is under CC-BY, there's indeed no reason to put new Wikinewses on hold, so Hungarian Wikinews can go ahead.
The drafts we've seen of the FDL 1.3, which we have to treat as confidential at this time, require this unusual step.
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
On 4/13/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
Due to the confidential nature of the current draft release, I can't comment further at this point.
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/13/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
Due to the confidential nature of the current draft release, I can't comment further at this point.
I have a sudden, burning desire to rewrite the GFDL into LOLcat, for "FDL v.1.35!!!!111" [1]
OH HAI, ceiling cat sez, free contentz, u can haz it! derivuhtive workz ok, if keepz teh licenez! Iz viral lolz!!111 Bewaer of teh copyrightz, u no can claim! KTHXBAI.
-- phoebe, who needs to cut back on the coffee
[1]http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=How_to_speak_lolcat
On 2008.04.13 23:52:43 +0100, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com scribbled 0.3K characters:
The drafts we've seen of the FDL 1.3, which we have to treat as confidential at this time, require this unusual step.
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
At the very least, it'd be easier to wait and start a new project as all-FDL1.3 licensed project, rather than starting, getting a fair bit of material, and then needing to go back and relicense it all.
-- gwern Consulting GSM RPC evil AFSPC media USCG XS4ALL GQ360 QRR
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 8:40 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
At the very least, it'd be easier to wait and start a new project as all-FDL1.3 licensed project, rather than starting, getting a fair bit of material, and then needing to go back and relicense it all.
Hmm, that would be a good point in theory, but before a project is created, they must *already* be an active test project on the Incubator, so that content would already be 1.2-licensed and you would still have to relicense it all. (See comment 20 on the bug: "Looking forward to visit gan.wikipedia.org as soon as possible. because the test site of gan wikipedia holding over 1000 articles!")
Yes, and seeing this, I can't imagine what valid reason there could be then for preventing their creation.
But then, I haven't seen FDL 1.3... and guess what, it's confidential! This is starting to feel like the government here... everything is secret. Whatever happened to transparency?
Mark
On 13/04/2008, Casey Brown cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 8:40 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
At the very least, it'd be easier to wait and start a new project as all-FDL1.3 licensed project, rather than starting, getting a fair bit of material, and then needing to go back and relicense it all.
Hmm, that would be a good point in theory, but before a project is created, they must *already* be an active test project on the Incubator, so that content would already be 1.2-licensed and you would still have to relicense it all. (See comment 20 on the bug: "Looking forward to visit gan.wikipedia.org as soon as possible. because the test site of gan wikipedia holding over 1000 articles!")
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
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On 4/13/08, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
But then, I haven't seen FDL 1.3... and guess what, it's confidential! This is starting to feel like the government here... everything is secret. Whatever happened to transparency?
We can impose transparency on ourselves, but respecting the confidentiality requirements of others is just that: respect. When faced with the draft GFDL 1.3 text, we had two options:
- We could either dual-license all new wikis under CC-BY-SA to avoid problems later, without providing much of an explanation; - We could postpone wiki-creation until the new license is released.
We chose the latter option, because we'd much rather discuss any substantial changes to wiki licensing openly, with the full text of the license visible to the community. So, this decision was in fact made in the interest of a transparent process.
(And yes, we did take the current Incubator situation into account when reviewing the text of the license.)
Okay, but this doesn't explain the idea behind not creating them.
Content would still need to be relicensed. Are you folks under the idea that not having their own real Wiki will inhibit creation of more content that will need to be relicensed? Why not just lock all Wikis until then?
Mark
On 14/04/2008, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/13/08, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
But then, I haven't seen FDL 1.3... and guess what, it's confidential! This is starting to feel like the government here... everything is secret. Whatever happened to transparency?
We can impose transparency on ourselves, but respecting the confidentiality requirements of others is just that: respect. When faced with the draft GFDL 1.3 text, we had two options:
- We could either dual-license all new wikis under CC-BY-SA to avoid
problems later, without providing much of an explanation;
- We could postpone wiki-creation until the new license is released.
We chose the latter option, because we'd much rather discuss any substantial changes to wiki licensing openly, with the full text of the license visible to the community. So, this decision was in fact made in the interest of a transparent process.
(And yes, we did take the current Incubator situation into account when reviewing the text of the license.)
-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
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Hoi, Why not just take all Wikimedia Foundation projects off line ? Really let us have a sense of proportion. It is bad enough for the new projects not being created. Thanks, Gerard
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Okay, but this doesn't explain the idea behind not creating them.
Content would still need to be relicensed. Are you folks under the idea that not having their own real Wiki will inhibit creation of more content that will need to be relicensed? Why not just lock all Wikis until then?
Mark
On 14/04/2008, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/13/08, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
But then, I haven't seen FDL 1.3... and guess what, it's
confidential!
This is starting to feel like the government here... everything is secret. Whatever happened to transparency?
We can impose transparency on ourselves, but respecting the confidentiality requirements of others is just that: respect. When faced with the draft GFDL 1.3 text, we had two options:
- We could either dual-license all new wikis under CC-BY-SA to avoid
problems later, without providing much of an explanation;
- We could postpone wiki-creation until the new license is released.
We chose the latter option, because we'd much rather discuss any substantial changes to wiki licensing openly, with the full text of the license visible to the community. So, this decision was in fact made in the interest of a transparent process.
(And yes, we did take the current Incubator situation into account when reviewing the text of the license.)
-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Erik Moeller wrote:
On 4/13/08, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
But then, I haven't seen FDL 1.3... and guess what, it's confidential! This is starting to feel like the government here... everything is secret. Whatever happened to transparency?
We can impose transparency on ourselves, but respecting the confidentiality requirements of others is just that: respect. When faced with the draft GFDL 1.3 text, we had two options:
- We could either dual-license all new wikis under CC-BY-SA to avoid
problems later, without providing much of an explanation;
- We could postpone wiki-creation until the new license is released.
We chose the latter option, because we'd much rather discuss any substantial changes to wiki licensing openly, with the full text of the license visible to the community. So, this decision was in fact made in the interest of a transparent process.
(And yes, we did take the current Incubator situation into account when reviewing the text of the license.)
Thank you for declaring your conflict of interest.
It is perfectly understandable that your participation in the licence revision committee would have confidentiality implications. A person who was not associated with that committee, however, would not be able to block certain activities presumptively on the basis that they may conflict with an undisclosed set of rules. That person, without a conflict of interest, would continue to act under the old rules.
You conveniently neglect the third alternative: to continue starting new projects under GFDL 1.2. We have no way of knowing whether the new agreement will be released within the next week, or whether the parties are so deadlocked as to put that agreement on a plane with vapourware.
Your position is not helped by spin-doctoring the notion of transparency. If you are really intent on a a transparent and open process, then that must allow for the possibility that the new licence or parts of it will not be acceptable to the community. It must not be presented as a fait accompli.
Ec
On 4/14/08, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
You conveniently neglect the third alternative: to continue starting new projects under GFDL 1.2. We have no way of knowing whether the new agreement will be released within the next week, or whether the parties are so deadlocked as to put that agreement on a plane with vapourware.
There's no negotiation deadlock; they're just trying to fix some potential bugs with the new license before it's released. As I said, if for some reason things get stuck, we'll figure out another solution. Nobody is trying to pull a fast one here; quite the opposite: We're trying to protect the interests of the small wikis by doing this, as will become apparent when the license is released.
If you are really intent on a a transparent and open process, then that must allow for the possibility that the new licence or parts of it will not be acceptable to the community.
The parameters of any migration to FDL 1.3 and, by extension, CC-BY-SA have already been defined by the Board: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:License_update
So, yes, there will be a community consultation process before any decision is made upon release of FDL 1.3. That being said: Due to the way the license works, any re-user will be able to treat content we currently host as being licensed under FDL 1.3.
--- Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/14/08, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If you are really intent on a a transparent and
open
process, then that must allow for the possibility
that the new licence
or parts of it will not be acceptable to the
community.
The parameters of any migration to FDL 1.3 and, by extension, CC-BY-SA have already been defined by the Board:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:License_update
So, yes, there will be a community consultation process before any decision is made upon release of FDL 1.3. That being said: Due to the way the license works, any re-user will be able to treat content we currently host as being licensed under FDL 1.3.
To be blunt in what I think other's are getting at here:
The only effect of such a moratorium, that I can imagine, is increased pressure put on the community consultation process to end sooner rater than later.
Maybe my imagination is a bit weak today but that is all I can come up; ignoring bad faith options.
Birgitte SB
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On 4/14/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The only effect of such a moratorium, that I can imagine, is increased pressure put on the community consultation process to end sooner rater than later.
The two are completely unrelated.
On 15/04/2008, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/14/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The only effect of such a moratorium, that I can imagine, is increased pressure put on the community consultation process to end sooner rater than later.
The two are completely unrelated.
That's complete nonsense. If the new wikis can't start until the public consultation is over (if you're going to start them before that consultation, you'll have to do so under the old license, which you could do now), that is a pressure to rush the consultation. We may not to privy to all the information, but we aren't stupid. Please don't treat us as if we are and talk nonsense.
I'm willing to wait and see what the new license, but you had better have a damn good reason for this, or you are going to have some seriously pissed off Wikimedians on your hands.
On 4/15/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
If the new wikis can't start until the public consultation is over (if you're going to start them before that consultation, you'll have to do so under the old license, which you could do now), that is a pressure to rush the consultation.
No, the two are completely separate, as I said. The decision to switch to, for example, CC-BY-SA (if that's what FDL 1.3 allows us to do) has nothing to do with the decision not to launch new wikis right now due to the way the license is phrased. Once we have the text of the final license before us, we'll have a discussion about the best way to create new wikis. And that could be, in fact, to license them under the FDL-only, though I doubt it. But the point of the moratorium is to make that open discussion possible, rather than to silently implement some decision in the "best interests" of the small wiki communities.
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something. There was to be a new clause that went something like this:
"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead of this license."
The provision was, obviously, meant more or less to target Wikipedia and offshoots of it, with the understanding that at the time they had no better options but that now they should move to a better license. But on the other hand, the date was presumably added because the idea would be new wikis should skip the GFDL altogether and move to the wiki license: this was meant to be a transition clause only.
I'm not on any committees and have no special standing or knowledge and have not signed any nondisclosure agreements, so the above may be nonsense. But if the issue is something along those lines, it would make a considerable amount of sense as a reason not to start any new wikis for a few months if necessary, if there was reluctance from the other participants to move up the date too much. It's not really a big price to pay.
It's unfortunate that the FSF (or whoever is responsible) is apparently being secretive about this. But given that Wikimedia does not rule the world, it's inevitable that it will on occasion have to agree to things that ideally they wouldn't like to. A totally uncompromising position on things like transparency is not the most productive to adopt for the goals of Wikimedia. Assume good faith, and in the case of officers of Wikimedia, it would be nice to assume competence as well -- until proven otherwise, of course. If the facts can't be shared now, wait until they can be before you judge.
--- Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote: \
I'm not on any committees and have no special standing or knowledge and have not signed any nondisclosure agreements, so the above may be nonsense. But if the issue is something along those lines, it would make a considerable amount of sense as a reason not to start any new wikis for a few months if necessary, if there was reluctance from the other participants to move up the date too much. It's not really a big price to pay.
But they are already started. The material exists and is already licensed and is continually built upon even now. Not having the official url doesn't really mean anything in regards to the licensing of the existing material or the ability to create new material under the current license being phased out. The url is only important as a milestone to the communities involved and creating greater exposure for the project. But it doesn't mean the the project doesn't already exist under the current version of GFDL or that new material can not be licensed under that version in these languages. If that was the intention of the moratorium, the reality of the situation fails to achieve that. Of course, just because it fails doesn't mean WMF wasn't required to do this. Maybe no one thought it through very well. Or it could also have been a concession offered by WMF to show commiment to the processs that the other parties did not realize was so undermined by the existance of Incubator. (i.e. "Look we are so commited to this process we pledge in writing not create any new wikis with the current version") Such an agreement may have gained some corresponding concession for WMF that was quite valuable.
Anyway I think is it clear that a public clarification is not going to be forthcoming. I think the best approach here is imagine WMF gained something wonderful by this agreement and focus any discussion with frustrated parties on the fact that they can still create content in Incubator. Emphasize that this delay in granting the formality of the url is not a reflection on their work nor does prevent them from doing anything substantial with their project.
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.) Even if it is a really long date, like 12 months. People have much more confidence in these things when they are not open-ended.
Birgitte SB
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On 4/15/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
On 15/04/2008, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/15/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
The only way you could manage that is by not publishing a draft version which is somewhat risky.
On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 4/15/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
I don't really see the point in a moratorium on new wikis. Any project started after now is going to be the least of any problems we might have.
Since they haven't been started until now, they're probably not going to have the momentum to be tremendous by the time any new license is released. Additionally, the founding community and major contributors will largely still be around at the time any big sticking points come up.
I don't think whatever problems might be abated by waiting justify delaying approval of these projects, and as the one who insisted upon the public consultation period before anyone decides on anything, I really don't want to see a situation arise that would artificially pressure it to be shorter because there are dozens of frustrated communities waiting on it.
-Kat
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 4/15/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
April 30 is certainly reasonable, and within the more sensible part of the wide-open range that I mentioned before. Nevertheless letting new wikis be affected presumptively by an as yet undisclosed licence generates a lot of unnecessary heat. In the foreseeable future this handful of projects would remain tiny beside the huge bulk of other WMF projects whose conversion to a new licence would be a massive undertaking. Making the migration for a few additional tiny projects would be of no great consequence.
There are clearly imperfections in our application of 1.2, but it is the rule until formally replaced. At some future date 1.3 will become the rule, but until that date it is more orderly to proceed on the basis that 1.2 is fully applicable.
Ec
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 4/15/08, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com
wrote:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do
would be
to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium
will
not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll
definitely try to find
a better solution ASAP.
Thank you Erik.
Birgitte SB
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Erik Moeller пишет:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
Today is April 30, please find an another solution. The best solution is to create approved Wikipedias in a normal way, I think.
I was planning to send a similar mail tomorrow, but since Mikhail did it anyway today, I can only express my support.
Cheers Yaroslav
Erik Moeller пишет:
The main, really helpful thing WMF could do would be to give deadline on this. (i.e. The moratorium will not last longer than X months reagardless of the status of negotiations.
If we don't have the FDL 1.3 by April 30, we'll definitely try to find a better solution ASAP.
Today is April 30, please find an another solution. The best solution is to create approved Wikipedias in a normal way, I think.
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On 15/04/2008, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something. There was to be a new clause that went something like this:
"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead of this license."
If that's the case, common sense would dictate you set the date to be the date you publish the license, not some arbitrary date potentially months before users even have a chance to consider switching.
On Tuesday 15 April 2008 15:27:00 Simetrical wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something. There was to be a new clause that went something like this:
"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead of this license."
I find this very strange and unnecessary. Unnecessary, because if the GNU Wiki License is a version of the GFDL, all works created under GFDL 1.2 or later could be licensed by it anyway.
Also, it doesn't give attention to works created principally by a single person who later released them under GFDL 1.2 or later, and such works are plentiful on Wikipedia.
Simetrical wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something. There was to be a new clause that went something like this:
"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead of this license."
I have no knowledge of whether this is in fact going to be part of the license, but I do know that something like it has been requested on some other lists, so it's quite possible. The worry among some not-Wikipedia GFDL users is that any sort of open-ended "you can migrate licenses via a wiki" clause would encourage creative abuse, with stuff that was really intended by its authors to be and stay GFDL ending up getting migrated against their wishes. Putting a time limit on the migration (especially one that's already past) limits the amount of creative license migration anyone can do.
-Mark
Simetrical wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
"require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something. There was to be a new clause that went something like this:
"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead of this license."
The provision was, obviously, meant more or less to target Wikipedia and offshoots of it, with the understanding that at the time they had no better options but that now they should move to a better license. But on the other hand, the date was presumably added because the idea would be new wikis should skip the GFDL altogether and move to the wiki license: this was meant to be a transition clause only.
I'm not on any committees and have no special standing or knowledge and have not signed any nondisclosure agreements, so the above may be nonsense. But if the issue is something along those lines, it would make a considerable amount of sense as a reason not to start any new wikis for a few months if necessary, if there was reluctance from the other participants to move up the date too much. It's not really a big price to pay.
I think it makes no sense at all. Anyone who thinks it's easier to change the world than to change the transition date in a secret draft license needs their head examined.
I can only assume group dynamics is to blame. I can easily imagine myself agreeing to such a nonsensical course of action in order to end a long argument with an incredibly stubborn person.
So, assuming that's the case, I give my sympathy to those involved, and wish them best of luck.
-- Tim Starling
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 7:35 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think it makes no sense at all. Anyone who thinks it's easier to change the world than to change the transition date in a secret draft license needs their head examined.
Thus it makes no sense for anyone to insist on that course of action to begin with. But if, for some ridiculous reason, that were nonnegotiable or not worth negotiating, it would make perfect sense to stop creating wikis temporarily rather than having to deal with the headache of migrating their license manually. Which is why I objected to the tone of the criticisms of Erik et al. -- there was a presumption of unreasonableness *on the part of Wikimedia* that wasn't warranted without further info (even if my particular theory happens to be incorrect).
But I don't think you disagree with any of that.
--- Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 7:35 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think it makes no sense at all. Anyone who
thinks it's easier to change
the world than to change the transition date in a
secret draft license
needs their head examined.
Thus it makes no sense for anyone to insist on that course of action to begin with. But if, for some ridiculous reason, that were nonnegotiable or not worth negotiating, it would make perfect sense to stop creating wikis temporarily rather than having to deal with the headache of migrating their license manually. Which is why I objected to the tone of the criticisms of Erik et al. -- there was a presumption of unreasonableness *on the part of Wikimedia* that wasn't warranted without further info (even if my particular theory happens to be incorrect).
But I don't think you disagree with any of that.
I think the tone of the discussion varied and cannot agree with all the criticisms being lumped together as having an objectionable tone.
Soapbox: This is very active and public list. Conspicuously leaving key information unsaid will never be unnoticed or unremarked. If everyone who believes in giving WMF the benefit of the doubt in these situations politely ignores such omissions, that will only mean that they will be pointed out by those who are most likely describe the problem in the worst possible light. Over time this leads to a people anticipating any criticism to be meant destructively which further intimidates people with constructive intentions from voicing criticism. A large part of why this list can become so nasty is not that it is full of trolls that are waiting to pounce on any opportunity. Rather it is because moderate opinions are self-censored out of fear of being associated as a troll (or a shill as the case may be), which leaves only the most extreme opinions with enough motivation to speak out. Two or three extreme points of view being the only visible opinions leads to nastiness.
Although I found the rest of you posting in this thread informative and helpful. Objecting the tone of criticism, without specifying what exactly was objectionable only contributes to the problem I outlined above. I don't want to pick on you about this, but I think it is an appropriate time to bring out these thoughts with the recent moderation and your post gave me an opportunity to do so.
Birgitte SB (who is grateful and hopeful for the moderation)
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Yay! More Wikinews sites!
I sincerely hope some of the people over on the Hungarian version are up to translating their work over to English. Rico Shen does this from Chinese and if we had one person like that on each language, half the English contributors could quit and we'd still have a dozen or more stories a day.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Erik Moeller Sent: 14 April 2008 00:48 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Cc: Brion Vibber Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New wiki creation moratorium
On 4/13/08, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks or maybe few months?
The drafts we've seen of the FDL 1.3, which we have to treat as confidential at this time, require this unusual step. The release of the new license is expected shortly - if things get delayed significantly further, we'll find an alternative solution. I apologize for the inconvenience to the new project communities waiting for wikis to be created.
Since Wikinews is under CC-BY, there's indeed no reason to put new Wikinewses on hold, so Hungarian Wikinews can go ahead.
The thing is that these projects already have lots of contents under GFDL 1.2 in the Incubator. So even if you wait to create their wikis until GFDL 1.3 is released, the content will still have to be relicensed. So waiting for it really makes no sense.
2008/4/14, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
On 4/13/08, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
Hungarian Wikinews, Erzya and Extremaduran and Gan Wikipedia, and Japanese Wikiversity are approved projects currently waiting
creation.
These projects had waited for a month, before Brion said about a moratorium. It is unknown, when GFDL 1.3 will be released, few weeks
or
maybe few months?
The drafts we've seen of the FDL 1.3, which we have to treat as confidential at this time, require this unusual step. The release of the new license is expected shortly - if things get delayed significantly further, we'll find an alternative solution. I apologize for the inconvenience to the new project communities waiting for wikis to be created.
Since Wikinews is under CC-BY, there's indeed no reason to put new Wikinewses on hold, so Hungarian Wikinews can go ahead.
-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
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