There's currently a non-binding straw poll about the licensing of Wikinews articles, should the project launch under the Wikimedia umbrella:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll
I'd like to know two things:
1) What is the position of the board on projects using a licensing option other than the GFDL? Specifically, what is the opinion of the board on dual-licensing GFDL and CC-BY, and possibly other licenses?
2) Would a real vote on the license, if the project launches, be acceptable?
The reason this has come up is that some people feel that the GFDL does not allow for large enough use of Wikinews articles, and that dual licensing would address this. Personally, I'm not a big fan of dual (or multi) licensing, but will accept whatever the community decides.
I point out, in case this isn't clear, that dual licensing would very likely prevent the direct inclusion of materials from other Wikimedia projects, although not the other way around.
So I'd like to know where the Foundation stands on this issue. I'm mostly interested in moving forward on this point, not in any particular option (my personal favorite, the public domain, has relatively little support).
Regards,
Erik
On Thursday 28 October 2004 11:17, you wrote:
dual-licensing GFDL and CC-BY, and possibly other licenses?
You could allow every contributor to choose the license of his choice. So, ever page would have a different license. That's what I do in some of my projects.
(my personal favorite, the public domain, has relatively little support).
I am very interested in learning more about your reasoning on public domain and why it's your favourite. If you have enough time, please give me some reasons why a site admin should allow wikiauthors to choose public domain for their contributions. If you wanted to make me support PD, what would you tell me?
(the reason I ask is because I allow GFDL and CC-by-sa in my wikis and I am considering adding support for standard copyright, BSDL, other CC, and perhaps PD, so I am evaluating the pros and cons and I am trying to listen to as many opinions as possible)
On Thursday, October 28, 2004 11:22 AM NSK nsk2@wikinerds.org wrote:
On Thursday 28 October 2004 11:17, you wrote:
dual-licensing GFDL and CC-BY, and possibly other licenses?
You could allow every contributor to choose the license of his choice. So, ever page would have a different license. That's what I do in some of my projects.
Would you please try to understand how and why wikis work - especially the most successful one - before annoying us with ideas from your recently started projects?
(my personal favorite, the public domain, has relatively little support).
I am very interested in learning more about your reasoning on public domain and why it's your favourite. If you have enough time, please give me some reasons why a site admin should allow wikiauthors to choose public domain for their contributions. If you wanted to make me support PD, what would you tell me?
Have you considered to read the given link? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll
Have you ever considered to search on your own before asking busy people stupid questions?
Please come back when you really know the ropes of at least one Wikimedia project or your own ideas are well proven. Until then you should be *very* silent - at least on this mailing list. Thank you.
Arne (akl)
NSK-
(my personal favorite, the public domain, has relatively little support).
I am very interested in learning more about your reasoning on public domain and why it's your favourite. If you have enough time, please give me some reasons why a site admin should allow wikiauthors to choose public domain for their contributions. If you wanted to make me support PD, what would you tell me?
Two reasons: 1) It's compatible with everything. Never, ever worry about this crap again. Ask yourself if you realistically want to go after "infringers".
2) Copyleft requires enforcement, i.e. coercion. I believe this sends the wrong message, is a bad long-term strategy, and does not reflect well on our movement. As an opponent of copyright law, I also don't want to give people the argument that copyleft needs copyright to work.
That said, the differences are often exaggerated, so I don't lead personal crusades about the issue.
If you want a detailed discussion, you should talk to Jamesday on irc.freenode.net.
Regards,
Erik
For my own blog, Joi Ito convinced me (quite easily, once he explained it) to use CC-BY-2.0. This is the attribution-only license, which allows derivative works, and which is not a copyleft license.
The key point that he made is that if newspapers want to reprint some editorial that I write in my blog, copyleft can cause them some fears and headaches. I was also considering a no-derivs license (after all, what I write in my personal blog is personal opinion, and do I really want people modifying my personal opinion and redistributing it?), but then he pointed out that translations are a derivative work, and of course I want people to translate what I write on my blog, since I'm always trying to speak from a global perspective to a global audience.
Some of this same reasoning applies to wikinews. But for wikinews, a really *big deal* is compatibility with Wikipedia. (Or, am I wrong about that? How often will a news story really need to have content from wikipedia that exceeds ordinary fair use or quotation rights?)
I don't know of any clever solution which gets us both advantages.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Some of this same reasoning applies to wikinews. But for wikinews, a really *big deal* is compatibility with Wikipedia. (Or, am I wrong about that? How often will a news story really need to have content from wikipedia that exceeds ordinary fair use or quotation rights?)
Well the ability to use Wiknews content to update Wikipedia articles is more important than using Wikipedia content in Wikinews articles (quoting and/or framing of Wikipedia content should be enough), IMO. Wikipedia should concentrate on background, giving Wikinews the ability to concentrate on the news.
That said I don't think we should abandon copyleft for any project. Thus I support dual-licensing under CC-by-sa and FDL for Wikinews. The FDL is simply impractical to use in a print publication like a newspaper since it would require too much of third parties (like printing the whole license in the paper!). They could use the cc-by-sa which basicly requires a by-line and mention of the license (which would affect any improvements they made to the article as well). The FDL part is just to be one-way compatible with other Wikimedia projects.
But the cost to third parties using Wikimedia content should continue to be the passing on of the same freedoms we give them to others that use their derivative works. This ensures positive feedback.
Yes it is coercion, but it is just asking others to be as nice as we have been to them. I don't think that is too much to ask for. All PD and attribution-only does is give proprietary content providers a free lunch. Copyleft helps to change the world by making sure that those who use it share their improvements.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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