I do not agree, because you have forgotten a important point : a database, even composed
by texts in domain public, is not in the domain public : the work that provide
contributors
is under GFDL, therefore Wikisource, as a database, is under GFDL. When one give the whole
access to this database without the consent of the contributors (as the foundation did),
it is
a massive violation of the contributors right. And the worst is of course this deny of
credit : everybody is free to "give" his work
to an assocation that sells it without his consent, but don't count on me.
« I am not saying that it is acceptable to give incorrect credit; I am saying that the
credit is *not* incorrect except for translators.
There is no authorship credit given for non-authors; this has nothing to do with
Wikisource or the extension issue.
Authorship is only noted for certain types of contributions based on creativity. Not time
spent making the duplication between mediums more exact.
Wikisource proofreaders have no more credit due to them for "A Christmas Carol"
than the Mediawiki developers. Charles Dickens gets the credit for "A Christmas
Carol".
And this has nothing to do with the fact that "A Christmas Carol" is public
domain. No one ever gets named an author for proofreading and other non-creative tasks.
This is why it is not a copyright violation. Wasn't that what concerned you? The
massive copyright violation you thought was going on? If your real concern is that
the law and free content licenses do not grant IP rights for
non-creative efforts, then I cannot help you. Wikisource happens to record all
contributions in the history.
But re-users should only need to recognize those who have a right to be named by law and
custom. That includes those re-users who are simply printing a page from Wikisource.
Birgitte SB »