Hi all. Our company wishes to use a wiki to create a user-browsable database of law regulations, best practices and other accounting material. I tried to read the GPL but I find it incomprehensible :S
From what I've read I think I should not use material that must not be
changed so can Laws be published on a wikipedia or is it forbidden ?
Also, am I allowed to display banners on the wiki ?
Thank you for your advice, Jure
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:49:15 +0100, Jure Spik webdesign@carpediem.si wrote:
Hi all. Our company wishes to use a wiki to create a user-browsable database of law regulations, best practices and other accounting material. I tried to read the GPL but I find it incomprehensible :S
From what I've read I think I should not use material that must not be
changed so can Laws be published on a wikipedia or is it forbidden ?
Also, am I allowed to display banners on the wiki ?
Thank you for your advice, Jure
The GPL only applies to the use and modification of the program and its source code. It has no effect on the kind of content that can be hosted on a site running the MediaWiki software.
Wikipedia itself licences its content under the GFDL, so that the encyclopedia articles themselves are licenced to be used in various ways by anyone who so wishes - obviously a law that fell under a more restrictive copyright would not be compatible with that. But there is no compulsion to use the same licencing arrangement just because you use the same software - if you set up your own wiki installation, you are as free to choose its copyright status as you would be for any other website.
Similarly, you are free to modify the software in any way you so wish, such as to accomodate banners or interface changes. Here, the GPL does have an effect - IANAL, but this is my understanding: if your site is publically accessible, the exact nature of your changes to the core software must also be made public, since the GPL forbids you to have users who cannot build further on your changes. Basically, if you improve on the work given freely by others, you have to give your improvements equally freely.
Hope this clarifies things a little.
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, Rowan Collins wrote:
IANAL, but this is my understanding: if your site is publically accessible, the exact nature of your changes to the core software must also be made public, since the GPL forbids you to have users who cannot build further on your changes.
This is incorrect: you can modify the software any way you want, and use it for whatever purpose you want, without making anything public. So a site does not have to make its wikimedia-derived software public.
If you redistribute the modified software to other parties, either for free or selling it, you have to use the same GPL license. That is, you must grant the same rights and obligations of free use, free modification, and GPL redistribution.
Alfio
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 14:43:41 +0200 (MEST), Alfio Puglisi puglisi@arcetri.astro.it wrote:
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, Rowan Collins wrote:
IANAL, but this is my understanding: if your site is publically accessible, the exact nature of your changes to the core software must also be made public, since the GPL forbids you to have users who cannot build further on your changes.
This is incorrect: you can modify the software any way you want, and use it for whatever purpose you want, without making anything public. So a site does not have to make its wikimedia-derived software public.
If you redistribute the modified software to other parties, either for free or selling it, you have to use the same GPL license. That is, you must grant the same rights and obligations of free use, free modification, and GPL redistribution.
Alfio
Oops! Of course - I somehow muddled using the software in a publically visible way with distributing the software itself.
Thank you Rowan and Alfio. You have made it very clear what I can do with my Wiki.
Have a very nice day, Jure
Rowan Collins wrote:
have an effect - IANAL, but this is my understanding: if your site is publically accessible, the exact nature of your changes to the core software must also be made public, since the GPL forbids you to have users who cannot build further on your changes.
It is my impression that this is not true.
It's perfectly o.k. under the GPL to use modified GPL code on a website without disclosing your modifications.
http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/00/07/13/1831245.shtml
Is a sort of old slashdot article about it.
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