On Sat, 28 May 2005, Timwi wrote:
Quite to the contrary, you only asked if the image could be used on Wikipedia, not whether they would license it under the GFDL or anything else. Therefore, they only agreed to using it on Wikipedia, and therefore it should not be used on Wikipedia because it isn't free.
I figured some (even most) people here may have this position. I'm a Sysadmin who has been working almost exclusively with F/OSS for more than 11 years so have a good background in the licencing issues. It is from this basis that I make these comments:
I think it is important to remember that most of the people in the world have not even considered or heard of the issues related to licencing that the people here (and in the OSS community) are familiar with.
If I had asked Mercedes Corby if I could licence the images under the GFDL I'm sure she would not have had the slightest clue what I was talking about. I'm certain her focus, then as now, is on her sister who has now been convicted of a serious offence and sentenced to 20 years jail, not licencing issues. I was not about to expect her to absorb alot of information on licencing when she had more important things to worry about. As far as I'm concerned I asked for images that were copyright free and that is what I got.
Here we have images that (as far as I know) no one has objected to and yet they may be deleted. IMHO we need to stop and consider the intent of a grant to use an image, not just the specific wording of the grant because most people in the world will not use the exact wording which seems to be expected. If we do not then Wikipedia will ultimately be the loser.
I spent time and effort getting those image and I'm disappointed that they may be deleted for a subtlety of licencing which is probably of absolutely no concern to the person who took the image or most of the people viewing the images. Although understanding of licencing is growing in the general community most people will never care as much as a typical Wikipedia contributor. We have to learn to live with this.
Also, to Anthere's comment that this should go to Wikien, after considering I think this is the right list as the image could be use on any in articles of any language.
Rob