I would not feel comfortable with the idea that Microsoft or Yahoo could take our content, make an encyclopedia out of it (redistributable, of course), and *not* include an invariant section amounting to a link back to us.
Do others share this sentiment?
I'll be the token dissenter here. I certainly don't care what anyone else does with free content--that's why I made it free in the first place, because my imagination for what uses it might be put to is limited. Let any take it for any reason--for free or for profit--as long as they don't commit outright fraud by claiming that they created it and attach their own copyright notice, it's still free.
In support of the general idea, though, I should point out that making the requirement doesn't actually prevent any other uses, it just makes them non-automatic. Bomis could still grant permission for uses that violated the GFDL on an individual basis. 0
--- lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote: [snip]
I'll be the token dissenter here. I certainly don't care what anyone else does with free content--that's
why I made it free in the first place, because my imagination for what uses it might be put to is limited. Let any take it for any reason--for free or for profit--as long as they don't commit outright fraud by claiming that they created it and attach their own copyright notice, it's still free.
To some extent I agree with this. I think the only think we should be asking for is some form of acknowledgement that it came from Wikipedia. I think making the requirements too onerous will discourage people from using Wikipedia content, and retard Wikipedia's growth.
In support of the general idea, though, I should point out that making the requirement doesn't actually prevent any other uses, it just makes them non-automatic. Bomis could still grant permission for uses that violated the GFDL on an individual basis.
No, Bomis can't. Bomis only holds the copyright to material contributed by Bomis employees. All the other material contributed by others is copyrighted by them. So Bomis can only give permission for the terms of the license to be changed if the content is purely the work of Bomis employees, which given the collective authorship of Wikipedia articles is unlikely. In order to vary the terms of the license, you'd basically need agreement from every contributor. (On a side note, how many people working on Wikipedia actually are employed by Bomis? There's Larry, Jimbo, and who else?).
Simon.
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Simon Kissane wrote:
(On a side note, how many people working on Wikipedia actually are employed by Bomis? There's Larry, Jimbo, and who else?).
I am the majority owner of Bomis. Tim Shell is my partner, and we have another partner who is (merely) an investor, not an active participant in the company.
Larry works solely on Nupedia and Wikipedia.
You may also have had contact with Jason, Ted, and Toan, which, if you include me as well, is our programming staff.
We currently have 10 employees. In addition to me, Tim, Larry, Jason, Ted and Toan, there is Terry (advertising sales), Christine (business manager and my wife) in the business areas, and Rob and Jeremy in the Bomis content management department. The 10th employee is my brother Johnny -- he only works part-time, doing programming tasks.
We have never had venture capital. We didn't make millions in the dot-com boom, but we didn't lose millions, either. We never even *saw* millions. :-) We're making a decent living, and we're growing the company in the old fashioned way, i.e. trying to turn a proft from month to month, paying the bills, serving the customers.
As a side note, it is sort of funny to me when I read people discussing "Bomis" in the abstract. Ultimately, that just means me, since I'm the final decisionmaking authority. Bomis is not a big abstract company, it's just the people that you know. A down home mom and pop dot-com. :-)
I've just joined. What a great first message for me to see. Now I have a better idea of where things are.
I've been online over 5 years. I guess I'm a web writer since I've written for several websites and ezines. I have a writers email list, InkSplatters at Yahoo. I make ASCII art and have my creations up on my personal website. Currently I'm writing for WZ.com and BackWash. I have a site in the works for HerPlanet. If my computer could stop dying I would have it up and going by now.
I'm a Canadian living in southern Illinois with the guy I met as a teenaged penpal and married just at the end of last year. I love sewing, travel, the outdoors, nature, writing, publishing online and too many things to mention in a short introduction.
Happy Weekend,
Laura
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Welcome, Laura!
I'm also glad this is the first message you saw. :-)
Larry Sanger
On Sun, 28 Oct 2001, Laura T. wrote:
I've just joined. What a great first message for me to see. Now I have a better idea of where things are.
I've been online over 5 years. I guess I'm a web writer since I've written for several websites and ezines. I have a writers email list, InkSplatters at Yahoo. I make ASCII art and have my creations up on my personal website. Currently I'm writing for WZ.com and BackWash. I have a site in the works for HerPlanet. If my computer could stop dying I would have it up and going by now.
I'm a Canadian living in southern Illinois with the guy I met as a teenaged penpal and married just at the end of last year. I love sewing, travel, the outdoors, nature, writing, publishing online and too many things to mention in a short introduction.
Happy Weekend,
Laura
\\ .-'```^```'-. http://wz.com/business/ASCIIart.html / (\ __ /) \ http://www.backwash.com/content.php?id=59 | ` \/ ` |\_/| \ \____/ (^Y^)--.-, `'-.......-'w-w__((__) ldb[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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