"JW" == Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
JW> I notice that you're currently using the Creative Commons JW> by-sa (attribution share-alike) license. That's a good JW> license, nearly identical in spirit to the GNU FDL but not, in JW> my opinion, strictly compatible.
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
JW> Since you're only a few days in, you could still switch to GNU JW> FDL easily enough -- this might be best for you, if you JW> envision a lot of content sharing between your site and JW> wikipedia (which seems natural).
I realize that the license incompatibility with Wikipedia articles is a serious problem.
http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:Why_Wikitravel_isn%27t_GFDL
However, I think that the GFDL isn't really compatible with our goals for Wikitravel.
http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:Goals_and_non-goals
Specifically, we want to make it really easy for a tourist information office, a hotel or guesthouse, or a party planner to have a stack of copies of a Wikitravel article for use by customers/visitors.
The heavyweight nature of the GFDL would make it hard for them to comply: just having to redistribute the entire license text and a changelog makes it unreasonable for 1-2 page articles, and having to distribute source code is just out of the question.
The Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 just requires a copyright notice and the URL of the license -- small enough to fit in a little paragraph at the end of an article.
It really bothers me a lot that the license incompatibilities make it hard to borrow content from Wikipedia. I've thought about doing a dual license, so that at least Wikitravel content could be shared into Wikipedia, if not vice versa, but it seems like a lot of trouble (and explaining).
The only consolation I have is that a lot of encyclopedic content isn't really applicable for a travel guide. But there is a lot of crossover. The trade-off is painful but apparently necessary.
JW> I'm enthusiastic about your project, and I think the idea is JW> excellent.
Thanks for the support. We're excited about the project, too!
~ESP
Evan-
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
Dual licensing should be possible. Just change the submission notice to say that users agree that content can be used under both the terms of the FDL and the CC Share Alike license.
Regards,
Erik
On 5 Aug 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:
Evan-
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
Dual licensing should be possible. Just change the submission notice to say that users agree that content can be used under both the terms of the FDL and the CC Share Alike license.
Dual licensing is of course possible, but it only resolves problems in one direction. In the other direction one cannot copy. Even worse, a dual license means that one cannot copy _anything_ that is not under one's own copyright or in the public domain. Both the GNU/FDL and CC make it impossible to take a dually licensed text and redistribute it dually licensed.
Andre Engels
Andre-
On 5 Aug 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:
Evan-
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
Dual licensing should be possible. Just change the submission notice to say that users agree that content can be used under both the terms of the FDL and the CC Share Alike license.
Dual licensing is of course possible, but it only resolves problems in one direction. In the other direction one cannot copy.
One could, if Wikipedia was also dual licensed. Unfortunately that's not possible at this point. But since Evan is profiting from Wikipedia development, it would only be fair for him to make some effort to let us use the material his site creates.
Even worse, a dual license means that one cannot copy _anything_ that is not under one's own copyright or in the public domain. Both the GNU/FDL and CC make it impossible to take a dually licensed text and redistribute it dually licensed.
Huh? I do not understand this at all. Please elaborate.
Regards,
Erik
On 6 Aug 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:
Even worse, a dual license means that one cannot copy _anything_ that is not under one's own copyright or in the public domain. Both the GNU/FDL and CC make it impossible to take a dually licensed text and redistribute it dually licensed.
Huh? I do not understand this at all. Please elaborate.
When one makes a copy, one should use either or both licenses to have the right to do so.
The GNU/FDL states:
"You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License."
And the Creative Commons license states:
"You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the rights granted hereunder."
To publish something under dual license, is not "expressly provided for under the GNU/FDL", and it "offers terms on the work that alter the terms of the CC license".
Andre Engels
Andre-
To publish something under dual license, is not "expressly provided for under the GNU/FDL", and it "offers terms on the work that alter the terms of the CC license".
Not at all. It is the licensee who picks the license which he wants to accept and ignores the other one. The publisher can offer as many licenses as he wants -- compare Trolltech's licensing policy: GPL or proprietary.
Regards,
Erik
On 6 Aug 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:
Andre-
To publish something under dual license, is not "expressly provided for under the GNU/FDL", and it "offers terms on the work that alter the terms of the CC license".
Not at all. It is the licensee who picks the license which he wants to accept and ignores the other one. The publisher can offer as many licenses as he wants -- compare Trolltech's licensing policy: GPL or proprietary.
Yes, the _publisher_ can offer as many licenses as he wants, but the _copier_ can redistribute it under only one one license, namely the license that he has accepted.
Andre Engels
Erik Moeller wrote:
Evan-
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
Dual licensing should be possible. Just change the submission notice to say that users agree that content can be used under both the terms of the FDL and the CC Share Alike license.
Well, several of us have analyzed this carefully, and I don't agree. Dual licensing doesn't really help much, and actually would tend to invite disastrous complexities.
Here's the problem: there's tons of GNU FDL only content in Wikipedia. Anyone can take that content and modify/redistribute it *under the GNU/FDL*. But they can't take the content and modify/redistribute it *under the CC/ATT-SA*, even though the licenses are very similar in spirit.
A writes an article and releases under GNU FDL. If B tries to dual license it and distribute to C, then B is purporting to give rights to C that A never authorized. (In particular, the ATT-SA drops several specific requirements of the GNU FDL.)
--Jimbo
On Tue, 5 Aug 2003 18:11:01 -0700, Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com gave utterance to the following:
Erik Moeller wrote:
Evan-
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
Dual licensing should be possible. Just change the submission notice to say that users agree that content can be used under both the terms of the FDL and the CC Share Alike license.
Well, several of us have analyzed this carefully, and I don't agree. Dual licensing doesn't really help much, and actually would tend to invite disastrous complexities.
Question: If none of the existing licensing systems quite fulfils Wikipedia's needs, why doesn't Wikimedia (i.e. us) write a license that does work?
This really shouldn't be on wikitech-l.
Richard Grevers wrote:
Question: If none of the existing licensing systems quite fulfils Wikipedia's needs, why doesn't Wikimedia (i.e. us) write a license that does work?
Well, we can write whatever we want, but it won't help with the problem, because we have this huge mass of content under GNU FDL.
I think that the best we can do is to come up with strong suggestions for GNU FDL 2.0, and under the "any later versions" clause, use that.
What I'd like to see if GNU FDL 2.0 and CC ATT-SA 2.0 both explicitly say that copying and pasting stuff between stuff licensed under either is perfectly fine.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Here's the problem: there's tons of GNU FDL only content in Wikipedia. Anyone can take that content and modify/redistribute it *under the GNU/FDL*. But they can't take the content and modify/redistribute it *under the CC/ATT-SA*, even though the licenses are very similar in spirit.
I'm just looking for a way to get Evan's stuff, not for a way to give him ours :-). Since he has already decided not to use the FDL, he will obviously not be able to use FDL-only content. But if he dual-licenses wikitravel at least we can add useful information from it to the encyclopedia. Otherwise that's not possible without contacting each author.
Regards,
Erik
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