A couple more things:
* I am not in favor of switching to another license for three reasons: ** designing a license is not easy, and it would suck a lot of energy out of Wikipedia proper. Furthermore, it is not clear that in the end we would be able to agree on one license. ** GFDL has goodwill in the community; our new license would be scrutinized and certainly criticized by vocal GNU hawks. ** I think it is not too difficult for Wikipedia to comply with GFDL, see below.
* the requirement that (at least) the five most important authors be listed can be easily fulfilled once we keep complete logs (which is desirable for other reasons as well). We simply list *all* contributing authors then, and that is in compliance with GFDL.
* The requirement that titles have to be changed for every new version of the work can be waived by the authors; we need to have a clear statement on the submit page which says: "you are now submitting your additions under GFDL without front- and back cover text and invariant sections; furthermore you agree that modified versions of the document may retain the same title. If you don't agree, don't hit submit."
* Three additional arguments against the current strict table attribution requirement occured to me last night:
** if we really want large websites to adopt Wikipedia (Microsoft is out since they have Encarta, but Yahoo, Google and AOL are potential customers), there is absolutely no way that we can hope to dictate layout decisions to them. Their site designers will laugh us out the door.
** On educational websites that use some materials from Wikipedia, teachers typically would want to tell students about the project, but they don't want their students to jump right in and contribute to Wikipedia: it would distract too much; learning is the focus. So you make actually discourage teachers from using Wikipedia material, because the current table would suggest to students that the teacher wants them to contribute.
** We are currently using FOLDOC materials which were licensed to us under GFDL. Imagine their invariant section contained some pink table and a blinking icon. I don't think we would appreciate it.
Cheers, Axel
--- Axel Boldt axel@uni-paderborn.de wrote:
A couple more things:
- I am not in favor of switching to another license
for three reasons: ** designing a license is not easy, and it would suck a lot of energy out of Wikipedia proper.
So long as we don't start overreach, all we need to is make some simple changes to the GNU FDL, mainly deleting some of the requirements in section 4, such as the five author requirement. Of course, we'd need to get FSF permission to create a modified version of the GNU FDL, but I suspect they'd probably give it to us, so long as we didn't call it the FDL, and we acknowledged it as originating with them.
Furthermore, it is not clear that in the end we would be able to agree on one license.
Well, if we take the FDL as a base, and make only those changes are necessary to make it fit with Wikipedia.
I am planning to create my own modification of the FDL as a demonstration, and post it to see peoples reactions. I probably shouldn't post a modified version, even though it would only be to gather comments, since copyright on the FDL doesn't allow it, until I get permission from the FSF. (I have emailed RMS to ask him.)
** GFDL has goodwill in the community; our new license would be scrutinized and certainly criticized by vocal GNU hawks.
Again, basing it on the FDL with only a minimum of necessary modifications would solve this problem.
** I think it is not too difficult for Wikipedia to comply with GFDL, see below.
- the requirement that (at least) the five most
important authors be listed can be easily fulfilled once we keep complete logs (which is desirable for other reasons as well). We simply list *all* contributing authors then, and that is in compliance
with GFDL.
The problem here is, what if two hundred people have each made one edit to an article. Under the FDL, if I want to post that article anywhere else, or print it, I'd have to post the log as well.
I like the idea of not acknowledging the authors of articles. I think it emphasises the collective and communal nature of Wikipedia. In fact, I personally would rather not be acknowledged. But the FDL as it stands seems to force such acknowledgement.
[snip]
** We are currently using FOLDOC materials which were licensed to us under GFDL.
This would cause problems for my proposal to modify the FDL license, since we'd probably need their permission to distribute their material under a different license. But if its significantly similar to the FDL, I think we'd have a good chance.
And I doubt we are following the terms of the FDL at present anyway in so far as including FOLDOC materials goes.
[snip] Simon J Kissane
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Simon Kissane wrote:
So long as we don't start overreach, all we need to is make some simple changes to the GNU FDL, mainly deleting some of the requirements in section 4, such as the five author requirement. Of course, we'd need to get FSF permission to create a modified version of the GNU FDL, but I suspect they'd probably give it to us, so long as we didn't call it the FDL, and we acknowledged it as originating with them.
I don't think we need a new version for this. I think this can be handled by simply saying that we grant additional permissions.
One oddity here is that although keeping an indefinite amount of history will help with the 5 author problem, we really don't even know or keep the *names* of the authors, only at best their *handle*. Perhaps that's sufficient?
I can't imagine anyone seriously complaining about this.
I am planning to create my own modification of the FDL as a demonstration, and post it to see peoples reactions. I probably shouldn't post a modified version, even though it would only be to gather comments, since copyright on the FDL doesn't allow it, until I get permission from the FSF. (I have emailed RMS to ask him.)
That's sort of funny, isn't it?
The problem here is, what if two hundred people have each made one edit to an article. Under the FDL, if I want to post that article anywhere else, or print it, I'd have to post the log as well.
I like the idea of not acknowledging the authors of articles. I think it emphasises the collective and communal nature of Wikipedia. In fact, I personally would rather not be acknowledged. But the FDL as it stands seems to force such acknowledgement.
I agree with you about the spirit of acknowledgement. The article history, with authors listed, is a useful technical tool in trying to appease all sides in any dispute. But I try hard personally not to think of any page as "my" page, except perhaps [[Jimbo Wales]], which will be moved into a separate namespace someday.
This would cause problems for my proposal to modify the FDL license, since we'd probably need their permission to distribute their material under a different license. But if its significantly similar to the FDL, I think we'd have a good chance.
Yes, with *them*, but not necessarily with *us*. We already have hundreds or thousands of authors, most of whom we have no way of contacting, and some people who we *can* contact may object strongly to any change of license of any kind.
And I doubt we are following the terms of the FDL at present anyway in so far as including FOLDOC materials goes.
You are probably right, but I hope I'm not boring anyone by repeating myself that any violations we have right now are unintentional and will be corrected as soon as we can figure out exactly what to do. :-)
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I agree totally with the idea that we should not impose a strict table attribution requirement. However, I don't think all these arguments against it are valid.
Axel Boldt wrote:
Three additional arguments against the current strict table attribution requirement occured to me last night:
** if we really want large websites to adopt Wikipedia (Microsoft is out since they have Encarta, but Yahoo, Google and AOL are potential customers), there is absolutely no way that we can hope to dictate layout decisions to them. Their site designers will laugh us out the door.
Actually, many sites (Google, AOL, Altavista, and some other major sites) do use the "Open Directory Project" data, and it has a strict table requirement. So apparently this isn't as big an issue as we might think.
** On educational websites that use some materials from Wikipedia, teachers typically would want to tell students about the project, but they don't want their students to jump right in and contribute to Wikipedia: it would distract too much; learning is the focus. So you make actually discourage teachers from using Wikipedia material, because the current table would suggest to students that the teacher wants them to contribute.
I'm not sure that this would really be a factor, but it is certainly one thing to consider in thinking about what, exactly, we want to require.
** We are currently using FOLDOC materials which were licensed to us under GFDL. Imagine their invariant section contained some pink table and a blinking icon. I don't think we would appreciate it.
That's right.
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