I am not going to pretend to have an edifying opinion about specific *legal* issues. I'll leave that to Jimbo and others, who have probably studied this stuff a heck of a lot more than I have. I want to get the legal problems straightened out as soon as possible; the stress is very unpleasant!
What I do want to comment on is why having links back to Wikipedia, in general, is such a good thing. You'll forgive me for waxing eloquent on, well, one of my favorite subjects (the future of Wikipedia).
(By the way, I agree entirely that a text link back to Wikipedia would be just fine. We, Jimbo and I, haven't said so on the "requirements" page, but that's because we're waiting for this issue to get properly resolved so we can figure out what we *should* put up there.)
First, I have a goal. This is my *professional* goal in life. I want to is to help create--probably together with Nupedia--the biggest and highest-quality encyclopedia in history (eventually, anyway). And one, moreover, that is free, both libre and gratis. This is a hugely ambitious goal, and I never thought it was going to be easy. I'm enormously gratified that we've gotten this far. When I was given this job (it really was a great gift), I certainly didn't have *that* ambition. I never thought I'd work professionally on an encyclopedia. But I've warmed up to the task and by golly, I'm going to do my best to see it through.
Eventually, if we *focus* and stick to the task, Wikipedia will become a truly useful resource. I think the two main keys to our success are focus and time. As long as we resist travelling in the direction of Everything2 or Usenet, with their acceptance of low quality, bias, and internecine warfare, and as long as we are given enough time, Wikipedia will grow from 15,000 not-too-bad-articles to 150,000 wow-these-are-actually-good- encyclopedia-articles. And then who knows what will happen. It could become something truly amazing. It's definitely worth the old college try, anyway.
Links back to us from websites that use our content will help make this possible success more probable, particularly if they are links to specific articles. I want to make sure that people who want to contribute to the Wikipedia and Nupedia projects, who see Wikipedia and Nupedia content on other websites, are given the option of returning to the original source of the content and working on it.
Consider this: the people who return to the source of our articles from another website will be twice as impressed with Wikipedia precisely *because* someone thought the content was good enough to use and put on their website. Think, as soon as particularly large, relatively "prestigious" websites start using our content, the credibility of Wikipedia is going to be given a solid boost. At that time, we will want to be able to invite people who are impressed by our content to come back and work on it.
Can you imagine what this project could be like in ten years, if we stay on track? It really *could* beat out Britannica in terms of quality. And *everybody and his grandmother* will be wanting to use Wikipedia content. We would be denying ourselves, I imagine, potentially *thousands* of very qualified new contributors, if we didn't require links back to Wikipedia. I want those people to work on Wikipedia! I internally do a little dance whenever I see a new highly-qualified person writing lots of articles for Wikipedia. It makes me think, "By golly, this really is *working*! This is friggin' great!"
Anyway, that's why I feel strongly about this issue.
Larry
On the PHP script (you knew I'd mention that again, right? ;) every article now has a link to its "printable version", currently without the logo and the links, just the article text, with a single line below it, stating the adress of both wikipedia and the article itself on the web. As people will prefer that version for printout (no links and other distracting stuff), the "paper linkback" should be solved by that.
IMHO, that linkback table is a little overkill for people who only want to use a single article (or just a part of it). Thinking about it, how about a little button to append at the end of the text (like the Nupedia "N") that links back to wikipedia.com or to the article itself? Linking to wikipedia.com might be better in the long run, because we can give a one-line-source for the button that needs no change; and, people who follow the link will see what we have to offer *in addition to* that specific article (which they can find using search pretty easy). Also, a small button wouldn't ruin layouts, is smaller than even a text link, but can still be quite visible (how about a white W on black background?)
Magnus
Thanks Magnus for this proposal. I would like to see a link to the FSF GFDL included as well. If you include that in your proposition I would second it.
Hannes Hirzel
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Magnus Manske wrote:
On the PHP script (you knew I'd mention that again, right? ;) every article now has a link to its "printable version", currently without the logo and the links, just the article text, with a single line below it, stating the adress of both wikipedia and the article itself on the web. As people will prefer that version for printout (no links and other distracting stuff), the "paper linkback" should be solved by that.
IMHO, that linkback table is a little overkill for people who only want to use a single article (or just a part of it). Thinking about it, how about a little button to append at the end of the text (like the Nupedia "N") that links back to wikipedia.com or to the article itself? Linking to wikipedia.com might be better in the long run, because we can give a one-line-source for the button that needs no change; and, people who follow the link will see what we have to offer *in addition to* that specific article (which they can find using search pretty easy). Also, a small button wouldn't ruin layouts, is smaller than even a text link, but can still be quite visible (how about a white W on black background?)
Magnus
[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
New person here,
Why is there a debate about using/ having linkbacks?
Also, why 2 sites, or 2 encyclopedias? My impression of them is Wikipedia is the "everyman's" encyclopedia and Nupedia is for the university elite. I looked at being a writer there but I really felt I wouldn't be welcome since I'm just a college graduate of a two year program for corporate communications.
Curiousity killed the cat, its a good thing I'm a dragon. ;)
Laura
\ .-'```^```'-. http://wz.com/business/ASCIIart.html / (\ __ /) \ http://www.backwash.com/content.php?id=59 | ` / ` |_/| \ ____/ (^Y^)--.-, `'-.......-'w-w__((__) ldb
Laura T. wrote:
Why is there a debate about using/ having linkbacks?
We are releasing the content of the Wikipedia under an open license, the GNU FDL. We have not previously been clear enough about exactly how people who want to copy our material are expected to behave. We are trying to clarify this.
Also, why 2 sites, or 2 encyclopedias? My impression of them is Wikipedia is the "everyman's" encyclopedia and Nupedia is for the university elite. I looked at being a writer there but I really felt I wouldn't be welcome since I'm just a college graduate of a two year program for corporate communications.
Nupedia was started first, and is extremely high quality in the limited content that it does produce. After a year or so of working on Nupedia, Larry had the idea to use Wiki software for a separate project specifically for people like you (and me!) who are intimidated and bored (sorry, Nupedia!) with the tedium of the process.
As it turns out, Wikipedia is dramatically more successful on some measures, and Nupedia is dramatically more successful on some other measures. It is my personal expectation that in the future, Nupedia will end up using (somehow) content from Wikipedia as a foundation for an "academically respectable" project.
The main thing about Wikipedia is that it is fun and addictive. :-)
Curiousity killed the cat, its a good thing I'm a dragon. ;)
Indeed, it is a good thing, then.
The Open Directory Project licenses their content, sounds like you could use the same system. I don't know any details ahout how its done. But they seem to have control over their content while making it freely (open) available. Does anyone have contacts with someone at Dmoz? I don't any more, I did't kiss all the right asses.
Laura
At 04:02 PM 10/30/2001 -0600, you wrote:
Laura T. wrote:
Why is there a debate about using/ having linkbacks?
We are releasing the content of the Wikipedia under an open license, the GNU FDL. We have not previously been clear enough about exactly how people who want to copy our material are expected to behave. We are trying to clarify this.
\ .-'```^```'-. http://wz.com/business/ASCIIart.html / (\ __ /) \ http://www.backwash.com/content.php?id=59 | ` / ` |_/| \ ____/ (^Y^)--.-, `'-.......-'w-w__((__) ldb
"Laura T." ldb64@midwest.net writes:
The Open Directory Project licenses their content, sounds like you could use the same system. I don't know any details ahout how its done. But they seem to have control over their content while making it freely (open) available.
FWIW, the Free Software Foundation has this to say about the Open Directory License (from URL:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html):
This is not a free documentation license. The primary problems are that your right to redistribute any given version is not permanent and that it requires the user to keep checking back at that site, which is too restrictive of the user's freedom.
Catching up with old mail, here.
The "printable version" is pretty slick.
I think it would be better to leave links off entirely (just delete all <a> tags), for purposes of printing.
The bottom-of-page text, i.e.,
This article is from Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.com), the free online encyclopedia. You can find this article at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
is just fine.
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Magnus Manske wrote:
On the PHP script (you knew I'd mention that again, right? ;) every article now has a link to its "printable version", currently without the logo and the links, just the article text, with a single line below it, stating the adress of both wikipedia and the article itself on the web. As people will prefer that version for printout (no links and other distracting stuff), the "paper linkback" should be solved by that.
IMHO, that linkback table is a little overkill for people who only want to use a single article (or just a part of it). Thinking about it, how about a little button to append at the end of the text (like the Nupedia "N") that links back to wikipedia.com or to the article itself? Linking to wikipedia.com might be better in the long run, because we can give a one-line-source for the button that needs no change; and, people who follow the link will see what we have to offer *in addition to* that specific article (which they can find using search pretty easy). Also, a small button wouldn't ruin layouts, is smaller than even a text link, but can still be quite visible (how about a white W on black background?)
Magnus
[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 06:58:45PM -0800, Larry Sanger wrote:
Catching up with old mail, here.
The "printable version" is pretty slick.
I think it would be better to leave links off entirely (just delete all <a> tags), for purposes of printing.
The bottom-of-page text, i.e.,
This article is from Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.com), the free online encyclopedia. You can find this article at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
is just fine.
Absolutely. Require that text at the bottom of each page, then? If I decide I want to do something slightly different, can I approach you with my proposal? I suggest you state in the copyright and GFDL implementation text that you can be approached for special situations. No general solution is going to work for everyone.
Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia? I didn't see it on the site. You really should post a copyright notice on the main page, directly, which includes the implementation of the license in it.
I am concerned that you run into a violation of the *spirit* of the GFDL, if not the precise letter, if you require some large or intrusive attribution on derivative works that doesn't exist on the live Wikipedia pages. In my case especially, since it isn't really a `derivative work' but just a downstream packaging of Wikipedia content, as it were.
Hopefully, given my track record of unpaid volunteer work for the Linux Documentation Project, and now some fair amount of unpaid volunteer work for the Wikipedia, you know that I'm not a money grubber who is trying to take advantage of Wikipedia or Bomis. I want to see you get fair attribution. My goals, in large part, are your goals. I want you to succeed. However, I also want the maximum flexibility in how I attribute you, within reasonable parameters of course. Your suggestion here sounds like something I can live with.
I've also decided definitely that all Wikipedia content that is packaged beside the LDP documents in Linux distributions will contain a live linkback to directly edit the page. That could easily bring a million Linux users to Wikipedia every month. More if you count the local page views. That is a good thing for Wikipedia and for Linux.
Please give me your views or guidelines on how I might approach this effort. My goal is to start having Wikipedia content used as part of Linux help, but I don't want to move the LDP over wholesale (and it would be rude to my authors, even those who GFDL'ed), nor do I want to simply leech. I'm just knocking around ideas right now, so if you can suggest any I should consider I'd appreciate hearing them.
I will be formatting the output differently from Wikipedia, though. I will make the output look as similar as I can to the other documents. I have to merge man pages, html, and docbook documents, and it is a challenge to make the presentation of all those documents seamless across format, but that's what I'm trying to do. I want the transition to and from Wikipedia pages within the Linux documentation database to be similarly seamless. I'll attribute Wikipedia pages, and probably put up a logo for graphical browser users.
I will run the final stylesheets past you once I get to that point. Live release in actual Linux distributions is probably six months away, so there is no hurry. I promise to be very amenable to following your suggestions, as long as you keep in mind that the user experience comes first in my page layout philosophy!
Thanks for resolving this issue quickly. It really is fundamental and the sooner you resolve it, the better for everyone. Then it becomes a non-issue and we can all get back to work where we should be. :-)
Regards,
From: "David Merrill" david@lupercalia.net ...
This article is from Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.com), the free online encyclopedia. You can find this article at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page
...
Absolutely. Require that text at the bottom of each page, then?
Something like that. I'd like to get to that soon. I think I'd like to find some plausible way to leave the exact wording open. The only disputed issue of any significance, I believe, is whether we will require a link back to the actual article URL on Wikipedia. I know there's been a lot of resistance to that, but it's really important, if we're going to get a lot of new contributors, that people be able to find the original article quickly and easily.
If I decide I want to do something slightly different, can I approach you with my proposal? I suggest you state in the copyright and GFDL implementation text that you can be approached for special situations. No general solution is going to work for everyone.
Yes. Good point.
Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia?
Yes, more or less. I'm not sure what that means. I'll leave it to Jimbo to articulate a position on that, which I believe he might already have done.
I didn't see it on the site.
And that's another problem we need to rectify. :-( It's just a matter of getting it right and getting around to it.
You really should post a copyright notice on the main page, directly, which includes the implementation of the license in it.
That's my understanding too.
I am concerned that you run into a violation of the *spirit* of the GFDL, if not the precise letter, if you require some large or intrusive attribution on derivative works that doesn't exist on the live Wikipedia pages. In my case especially, since it isn't really a `derivative work' but just a downstream packaging of Wikipedia content, as it were.
Maybe it would help, in some way, to include the notice on each Wikipedia page, indeed; that might remove some of the objections people have.
Hopefully, given my track record of unpaid volunteer work for the Linux Documentation Project, and now some fair amount of unpaid volunteer work for the Wikipedia, you know that I'm not a money grubber who is trying to take advantage of Wikipedia or Bomis. I want to see you get fair attribution. My goals, in large part, are your goals. I want you to succeed. However, I also want the maximum flexibility in how I attribute you, within reasonable parameters of course. Your suggestion here sounds like something I can live with.
Good!
I've also decided definitely that all Wikipedia content that is packaged beside the LDP documents in Linux distributions will contain a live linkback to directly edit the page. That could easily bring a million Linux users to Wikipedia every month. More if you count the local page views. That is a good thing for Wikipedia and for Linux.
No kidding, that would be fantastic.
Please give me your views or guidelines on how I might approach this effort. My goal is to start having Wikipedia content used as part of Linux help, but I don't want to move the LDP over wholesale (and it would be rude to my authors, even those who GFDL'ed), nor do I want to simply leech. I'm just knocking around ideas right now, so if you can suggest any I should consider I'd appreciate hearing them.
Well, I'm not sure what else you need other than our recommended wording, whatever it will be.
I will be formatting the output differently from Wikipedia, though. I will make the output look as similar as I can to the other documents. I have to merge man pages, html, and docbook documents, and it is a challenge to make the presentation of all those documents seamless across format, but that's what I'm trying to do. I want the transition to and from Wikipedia pages within the Linux documentation database to be similarly seamless. I'll attribute Wikipedia pages, and probably put up a logo for graphical browser users.
Sounds groovy.
I will run the final stylesheets past you once I get to that point. Live release in actual Linux distributions is probably six months away, so there is no hurry. I promise to be very amenable to following your suggestions, as long as you keep in mind that the user experience comes first in my page layout philosophy!
Well, it has *never* been our desire to ask anyone to do anything that would make the user experience less than optimal. (I happen to think that clearly-presented information about the source of an article definitely enhances the user experience--but not, necessarily, in the form of even a small table banner.)
Thanks for resolving this issue quickly. It really is fundamental and the sooner you resolve it, the better for everyone. Then it becomes a non-issue and we can all get back to work where we should be. :-)
Sorry it wasn't sooner! I should have read this sooner, or I would have seen that it is really high priority.
Larry
Regards,
-- Dr. David C. Merrill http://www.lupercalia.net Linux Documentation Project david@lupercalia.net Collection Editor & Coordinator http://www.linuxdoc.org
We turn the wheel to welcome her Every breath is sacred Opening, we welcome her Every breath is sacred As we walk this ancient path Every breath is sacred We are stronger than we know Every breath is sacred -- The Midwife's Song, Calla Unsworth [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Larry Sanger wrote:
Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia?
Yes, more or less. I'm not sure what that means. I'll leave it to Jimbo to articulate a position on that, which I believe he might already have done.
I'm afraid we don't have an official position on that. :-(
Plausible arguments have been made that the copyright rests with the original authors, and that Bomis/Wikipedia stands in the position of redistributor.
Big picture, the primary advantage to this for contributors might be that Bomis can't _also release_ the content under a proprietary license. The owner of content which has been placed under a free license can't ever "get it back", but can produce a derivative work which is then distributed under a proprietary license. This would be in addition to the existing free version.
I assume that would be undesirable for our contributors, who surely would be unhappy at such a development.
On the other hand, if the community decided someday that we wish the content were under a different license, a different *free* license, for some reason, then we'd have a hard time changing, even to another free license, because all of the past contributors haven't given us any right to do that.
The primary *disadvantage* to Bomis NOT owning copyright on the articles is standing in case of a lawsuit. I consider one of my jobs as trustee of the project is to sue the hell out of Microsoft or whoever if they try to do something unfree with the content. I'll have a harder time doing that if I'm not owner of the copyright, and lots of individual owners might be hard to organize into a coherent legal strategy.
Another major disadvantage (potentially) to our current "wide open" situation, is that third parties like Yahoo who want to legitimately use the content, under an open license, may be concerned that I can't point to anything or anyone as the definitive copyright owner, unless it is me.
All this stuff makes my head hurt, I must admit. I just want to make a free encyclopedia.
Larry Sanger lsanger@nupedia.com writes:
I think I'd like to find some plausible way to leave the exact wording open. The only disputed issue of any significance, I believe, is whether we will require a link back to the actual article URL on Wikipedia.
I still think that we would just have to *suggest* a few attributions we like, and 95 % of people would cut'n'paste one of these. I think the Free Software example shows that most people want to cooperate with the Copyright holders as much as possible (hey, they're giving away things!). And even the big boys can be persuaded by community pressure.
That's not to say that requirements are not needed; but giving people some slack may not be a bad idea. Requirements that I find useful:
* It must be made clear that/how the content in question is derived from Wikipedia (basic GFDL requirement). * The name "Wikipedia" must be mentioned * http://www.wikipedia.com/ must be linked to (if hypertext) or mentioned (otherwise). If the exact page URL is used instead, that's even better, but not required.
Regarding printed versions, I don't think giving the URL to the exact page wins us anything. People have to type it in both ways, and it's nicer to type in "wikipedia.com" first, have the browser figure "http://www.wikipedia.com/" and type in the page title into ... the Search field. Hmm, I would actually find a "go to this page" field, that does no searching useful on the homepage.
Example HTML that qualifies:
The following is a snapshot from a <a href="http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Caviar">Wikipedia article</a> (<a href="http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=edit&id=Caviar">edit that article</a>)
Example from a printed text:
This article is based on material from Wikipedia, The Free Encylopedia. URL http://www.wikipedia.com/
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
Plausible arguments have been made that the copyright rests with the original authors, and that Bomis/Wikipedia stands in the position of redistributor.
Since I don't remember signing (or even clicking "ok" on) an a copyright assignment, that seems the most realistic view. Bomis could possibly assert copyright on the /collection/ of articles.
The primary *disadvantage* to Bomis NOT owning copyright on the articles is standing in case of a lawsuit. I consider one of my jobs as trustee of the project is to sue the hell out of Microsoft or whoever if they try to do something unfree with the content. I'll have a harder time doing that if I'm not owner of the copyright, and lots of individual owners might be hard to organize into a coherent legal strategy.
Well, Bomis certainly has Copyrights on articles that were edited by its paid employees. Since Larry is doing a lot of work on Wikipedia, Bomis may well be the biggest single Copyright holder. This may already give you adequate standing in a lawsuit.
Contrast this with the situation of the FSF: were it not for Copyright assignments, the FSF would have *no* Copyright-relevant connection to many GNU projects, because FSF-employees did not write a single line of code for these.
All this stuff makes my head hurt, I must admit. I just want to make a free encyclopedia.
Me too. But these things should all be in order, before the big splash. Need I mention "Mathworld"?
Maybe this should be taken from the hands of us law amateurs and placed in those of professional counsel. Perhaps a lawyer with ties to the Free {Software,Database} community could be find that could give us a good "deal".
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Magnus Manske wrote:
IMHO, that linkback table is a little overkill for people who only want to use a single article (or just a part of it). Thinking about it, how about a little button to append at the end of the text (like the Nupedia "N") that links back to wikipedia.com or to the article itself? Linking to wikipedia.com might be better in the long run, because we can give a one-line-source for the button that needs no change; and, people who follow the link will see what we have to offer *in addition to* that specific article (which they can find using search pretty easy). Also, a small button wouldn't ruin layouts, is smaller than even a text link, but can still be quite visible (how about a white W on black background?)
The main problem I can see with a button is that many people wouldn't know what it would mean, if that's *all* that were included--that is, they wouldn't know that it's a link back to Wikipedia, which defeats the purpose of the linkback.
On Tuesday 30 October 2001 03:54, you wrote:
Can you imagine what this project could be like in ten years, if we stay on track? It really *could* beat out Britannica in terms of quality. And *everybody and his grandmother* will be wanting to use Wikipedia content.
Forget Britannica. This obsession with "beating" an obsolete concept is something we need to get rid of *fast*.
Instead, let's look at what is going on on WP right now. The people handling the 9-11 reporting are putting up pages for WTC victims.
Think about that. In the past, to get your name into britannica you first needed to get famous (or infamous), to do something extraordinary. To get a page up on WP, all that is needed is for someone to think that you should be remembered. Hypothetically, we could have a page for every one of the six billion people on the planet. And one for every one of their ancestors yea unto the seventh generation. [[At this point, Jimbo looks nervously at his hard disk capacity]].
This is something new, and I don't think any of us can really predict where it will go. But there is no need to obsess about Britannica. It was a great product in its time, but moving an 18th century concept to the web does not move the concept itself into the 21st.
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Michel Clasquin wrote:
Forget Britannica. This obsession with "beating" an obsolete concept is something we need to get rid of *fast*.
Why? I want to beat Britannica in terms of quantity and quality, and I think we can do it, given enough time. I want this because I think Britannica is a great encyclopedia, and if we actually do better, we will have achieved something truly extraordinary. It's a goal, stated in terms of a known product.
Instead, let's look at what is going on on WP right now. The people handling the 9-11 reporting are putting up pages for WTC victims.
[...]
This is something new, and I don't think any of us can really predict where it will go. But there is no need to obsess about Britannica. It was a great product in its time, but moving an 18th century concept to the web does not move the concept itself into the 21st.
If I understand you correctly, your point is that we should not limit ourselves by conceiving of our project as *just* following the traditional model of an encyclopedia. With that I fully agree. I probably spend more time "outside the box" than in it, and that probably goes for a lot of people at work on the project. There are many ways in which Wikipedia can be expanded. But I do believe that we should do everything Britannica has done at least as well as Britannica has done it, and that is a fine goal for us to have for now. I also think that, in these early stages, it is essential that we do focus on the task of building an encyclopedia, rather than starting many new different kinds of projects that could enhance the encyclopedia. First we've got to have something really great to enhance, I think. (This isn't to say that the 9/11 pages are unwelcome, of course. I'm glad people are working on them: they aren't in the way, they serve an important public service, and they get more people hooked on Wikipedia!)
Larry
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org