Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:58:31 -0800 From: Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re-licensing To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 55AA3395-EC88-4EC2-8D36-EFDA1967A839@wikimedia.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
geni writes:
(BTW, one benefit of the licensing proposal is that it will be easier for Wikipedia and Citizendium to cross-fertilize each other.)
Nope. The "to clarify that attribution via reference to page histories is acceptable if there are more than five authors." bit will mean that it is imposable for wikipedia to take content from Citizendium without Citizendium adopting some very strange TOS specifically for the benefit of wikipedia which I would rather doubt it would do. Even that would not make it possible to copy content on Citizendium to wikipedia at the moment were the 5 names +URL proposal to be enacted.
I don't regard the 5 names+URL implementation proposal to be written in stone. We might choose to modify it (by, e.g., increasing the number of names, or allowing editors who insist on being listed to be listed) based on feedback here and elsewhere. But the aspect of the license update has always been to maximize the extent to which Wikipedia can import and export CC-BY-SA-licensed content. Citizendium uses a CC-BY-SA 3.0 (unported) license already. Presumably Citizendium wants both to import and export CC-BY-SA content. Any implementation by us that would require us to ask Citizendium for some kind of exemption -- which I agree would be unlikely -- is out of the question.
May I repeat: It is the right of the author and only of the author to choose the way the attribution is made according the CC-BY-SA license.
"You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and, consistent with Section 3(b) in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner"
The original Author/Licensor has to designate an attribution party and to specify an URI as attribution.
His decision has to be respected by Wikipedia absolutely. This means: If Wikipedia wants to import "standard" CC-BY-SA content with the name of the author as attribution scheme it is NOT possible to apply the 5 authors rule for this content. Author's name has to be mentioned even if 1000 other contributors work on the Wikipedia article - not for eternity but 70 years after his death.
In this case re-users cannot choose the link-to-a-name-list-rule.
If such imported authors have special conditions - why not give them to all Wikipedia contributors?
Klaus Graf
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Klaus Graf klausgraf@googlemail.comwrote:
His decision has to be respected by Wikipedia absolutely.
And it will be... in the edit summary for the import which is in turn referenced either directly or indirectly in the attribution.
The critical difference is that unlike your average Wikipedian, this author didn't deliberately and knowingly contribute to a collaborative effort and in doing so waive any real possibility of a meaningful attribution.
So what's the better evil? Dealing with this once on the way in (that is, pinging the original author regarding your intention to include their content in a wiki where it will be relentlessly edited and reused with diluted attribution) or externalising the effort for all of our [re]users (and their [re]users and so on) forever by 'polluting' the article with a myriad differing long-lived attribution demands?
Note that Citizendium have been doing something like what is proposed for ages ("you must attribute the *Citizendium* and link to http://www.citizendium.org/ as well as the relevant *Citizendium* article"), *including* for Wikipedia articles ("Some content on this page may previously have [appeared on Wikipedia]"). The sky hasn't fallen on them yet.
Sam
1. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Reusing_Citizendium_Content
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