I recently met with Larry Lessig and we discussed at some length the
issue of licensing for Wikinews. Based on that conversation, I think we
should move fairly quickly towards adoption of CC-BY, and in particular
we should be looking hard at the proposed Creative Commons wiki
licensing model.
There is another possibility which we should probably consider -- one
which was not possible for Wikipedia when it started -- which is some
form of additional "site licensing" requirement. If we are not GNU FDL
compatible anyway, I think there is little cost to doing this.
The idea is this: contributors agree to release everything under CC-BY
(Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia Foundation the right
to do anything we like with it. By doing this, we hold open the
possibility of a relicensing to something compatible with FDL 2.0
someday (maybe).
Wikipedia couldn't do this when we started because people would not have
been happy giving a special license to Bomis or to me. But Wikimedia
Foundation now is trusted and for good reason.
We have been public-domain for a while, and Lessig is telling us that
this is not tenable in the long run. The problem is that to effectively
place something literally into the public domain is significantly more
difficult than it should be. Simply saying so is certainly not enough,
and what we are doing right now is almost certainly not enough.
- --Jimbo
--- Jack Lutz <jack-lutz(a)comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> > The idea is this: contributors agree to release
> everything under CC-BY
> > (Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia
> Foundation the right
> > to do anything we like with it. By doing this, we
> hold open the
> > possibility of a relicensing to something
> compatible with FDL 2.0
> > someday (maybe).
>
> If this is pursued, I would hope the reasoning is
> prominently stated
> next to the notice of copyright... If I understand
> correctly, the
> material would still be licensed CC-BY so Wikimedia
> could not declare it
> All Rights Reserved, but it's very unusual at first
> sight to say that
> Wikimedia can do "anything we like" with one's work.
Jimbo's proposal look fine to me. We will need to have
an official statement of the Foundation with regards
to the release of right, to which all wikinews may
refer to explain the modification of license compare
to other projects.
Ant
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