Ok, I'll admit. I have no intentions whatsoever to make a fork at this time. But what is to say that someone else wouldn't make a fork that becomes a real competitor to Wikipedia?

It wouldn't be the first time disagreement over copyright has splintered an "open source" project.

The English Wikipedia might sail safe because duplicating the productivity and massive size of it is hard. But what about the smaller languages? In a way that has already happened to the Swedish Wikipedia. One of the reasons why susning.nu has more than double the amount of articles that the Swedish WP has is because of their different licensing.

I'd love to respect Wikipedia's rules. But right now, I don't think anyone can claim that the rules aren't extremely diffuse. Does WP allow fair use images? The answers: Yes, No, Maybe, Sometimes.

Maybe if Jimmy Wales does not want any non-GFDL compliant images it is time for him to put his foot down? Very hard.

BL

I think a little courtesy would go a long way. If you have a fork you can make different rules especially with respect to images but please respect Wikipedia's rules too.

Fred

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Well, I don't really see it as so much of a race. Sure, we'd like people to turn to us for information, but as I see it we're just going to so completely dominate everyone with our information that there really is no competition. Already most people I know IRL turn to

How about I fork Wikipedia. And while you suckas scramble to try to get permission from the probably dead photographer who took the Che Guevara-face photo MY fork has more pictures than playboy. Would your friends still prefer Wikipedia??

I want the images. Those who took the images WANT us to use them (provided we reference them). Readers want the images. Mirrors of Wikipedia want the images. The copyright laws are stupid. GFDL is stupid. And the right way to get stupid laws changed is not to obey them.

Be reasonable.