hey all,
I've been looking (cross-eyed) at the number of different licensing schemes out there for my wiki (or series of wikis, based off of mediawiki), and have pretty much narrowed it down to two:
1) GNU Free Documentation License 2) Free BSD Documentation License
My primary intent for my wiki is to use it as a springboard for others to either cite in publications up-to and/or including text passages, as long as acknowlegment of this fact is given in the printed or non-printed work.
Both seem to fit the bill pretty well, but the GNU FDL seems to have a lot more 'strings attached' which I'm not particularly fond of - but on the other hand, wikipedia itself uses the GNU FDL, so the following questions come to mind. If I used the FreeBSD documentation license:
1) would I be able to encorporate GNU FDL content as long as citations were given?
2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?
I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm not exactly sure what that means...
Ed
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Edward Peschko wrote:
hey all,
I've been looking (cross-eyed) at the number of different licensing schemes out there for my wiki (or series of wikis, based off of mediawiki), and have pretty much narrowed it down to two:
1) GNU Free Documentation License 2) Free BSD Documentation LicenseMy primary intent for my wiki is to use it as a springboard for others to either cite in publications up-to and/or including text passages, as long as acknowlegment of this fact is given in the printed or non-printed work.
Both seem to fit the bill pretty well, but the GNU FDL seems to have a lot more 'strings attached' which I'm not particularly fond of - but on the other hand, wikipedia itself uses the GNU FDL, so the following questions come to mind. If I used the FreeBSD documentation license:
1) would I be able to encorporate GNU FDL content as long as citations were given? 2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm not exactly sure what that means...
Ed
Hello Ed,
MW: MediaWiki is the software and is published under GPL. WP: WikiPedia is the free encyclopedia project WM: WikiMedia is a foundation that host several projects (including WikiPedia).
Now you can use the mediawiki software to publish copyrighted content, public domain content or whatever content you want to publish :o) My email client for example probably use a Mozilla / GPL license, yet this email is not placer under such license.
cheers,
- -- Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org "This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."
2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm not exactly sure what that means...
Ed
Hello Ed,
MW: MediaWiki is the software and is published under GPL. WP: WikiPedia is the free encyclopedia project WM: WikiMedia is a foundation that host several projects (including WikiPedia).
Right.. I understand the distinction between the software's license and the content's license - but what I was wondering is does the wikimedia *foundation* have a policy against accepting a sister project's content with a different license than the Gnu FDL?
I sincerely believe that the FreeBSD is a better fit for my wiki than the GnuFDL - especially because it can be sublicensed - but hesitate to do so if it would jeapordize having the wiki accepted as a sister project..
Anyways, I'm moving this over to foundation-l, now that I look at it, it seems a better fit there..
Ed
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 01:32, Edward Peschko wrote:
I sincerely believe that the FreeBSD is a better fit for my wiki than the GnuFDL - especially because it can be sublicensed - but hesitate to do so if it would jeapordize having the wiki accepted as a sister project..
If your project is unique/unusual and is related to sciences and I like it, I may be able to accept it as a project of my site, the Wikinerds Community < http://portal.wikinerds.org >, which means that I will offer free hosting and I will have control over the project's policies (practically this means enforcing http://www.wikinerds.org/legal and having a link to Wikinerds.org homepage and forum). If you are interested, send a detailed description of the project and a link to a webpage where I can see your work, together with the text of the license you want to use and a short introduction of yourself including your full name and a link to your personal homepage at info@wikinerds.org
On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 12:19:05PM +0200, NSK wrote:
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 01:32, Edward Peschko wrote:
I sincerely believe that the FreeBSD is a better fit for my wiki than the GnuFDL - especially because it can be sublicensed - but hesitate to do so if it would jeapordize having the wiki accepted as a sister project..
If your project is unique/unusual and is related to sciences and I like it, I may be able to accept it as a project of my site, the Wikinerds Community < http://portal.wikinerds.org >, which means that I will offer free hosting and I will have control over the project's policies (practically this means enforcing http://www.wikinerds.org/legal and having a link to Wikinerds.org homepage and forum). If you are interested, send a detailed description of the project and a link to a webpage where I can see your work, together with the text of the license you want to use and a short introduction of yourself including your full name and a link to your personal homepage at info@wikinerds.org
well, its tempting, but I'm not too thrilled with the idea of ceding both policies and content, as switching to a different platform (drupal vs mediawiki). In fact, that's one of the primary goals of my project; to see exactly *what* licensing scheme works well with scientific development. wikiresearch has hosting space right now as well as complete freedom in development, so I'm not sure what wikinerds would offer.
I'm really more interested in expanding mediawiki as it stands to handle scientific content with the aim of merging the results into the wiki foundation. It seems to be the logical choice - established, multi-linugal, well-traveled. And enhancing mediawiki to handle scientific content bolsters the foundation's reputation, and broadens its scope, as well as adds potential for features to be added to wikipedia proper.
And being a separate, small project gives wikiresearch loads of room for experimentation. Basically - we can find out what works and what doesn't; and I've got a couple of professor friends who are willing to act as guinea-pigs, so we can work out the kinks in making mediawiki useful for scientific publishing..
Anyways, thanks for the offer. I'll keep it open and we'll see how the experiment goes..
Ed
On Tuesday 04 January 2005 07:03, Edward Peschko wrote:
1) would I be able to encorporate GNU FDL content as long as citations were given?
For all of my answers, keep in mind: This is not legal advice and I am not an expert on the discussed topic. The information I give may be incorrect or not applicable.
It is my understanding that you can use GFDL material in your work only if you release it under the GFDL or you use the fair use doctrine or the fair dealing laws. You need to contact a law consultant and ask.
This is not legal advice.
2) would this prevent said wiki being eventually merged with mediawiki (under, say wikibooks, or in its own category)?
It is my understanding that Wikimedia projects utilise the fair use doctrine of the United States, so they incorporate non-GFDL material in their GFDL works. You need to contact a law consultant and ask.
This is not legal advice.
I see that at 'http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html' they list the Free BSD license as 'compatible' with the GPL, but I'm not exactly sure what that means...\
It is my understanding that the BSDL allows sublicensing, so that's why BSDL material can be sublicensed under the GPL. But GPL does not allow sublicensing. You need to contact a law consultant and ask.
This is not legal advice.
Edward Peschko wrote:
and have pretty much narrowed it down to two:
1) GNU Free Documentation License 2) Free BSD Documentation License
What in particular led you to exclude CC-BY-SA from Creative Commons?
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org