[Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

[Erik Moeller]

Daniel-
> Would it not be much more important to make sure that Wikinews text can be
> used to *update* the corresponding Wikipedia articles? I've been very
> skeptical of the Wikinews idea due to the fact that it may reduce the rate
> at which Wikipedia is kept up to date.

Wikinews would have two primary goals:
* summarizing news
* original reporting

Wikipedia does none of the latter, so the only potential for redundancy is  
with news summarizing, currently done on Wikipedia on the [[current  
events]] page. This page provides one paragraph summaries with links to  
external news sources. In the future, instead of linking to external  
sources, these one paragraph summaries could link to detailed Wikinews  
articles instead, which would include Wikinews original reporting as well  
as a complete analysis of all sources.

I see no reason why Wikinews in one capacity or another should reduce the  
rate of updates on Wikipedia. As a matter of fact, I believe it will  
increase it, as a large number of additional links to current topics will  
point from Wikinews to Wikipedia.

> But placing Wikinews text under a
> license that is incompatible with Wikipedia is way over the top.

You appear to be under the misconception that a license different from the  
FDL would automatically mean license incompatibility. While this is, to  
some extent, true in the direction ''FDL text'' => ''text in another  
license'' (because the FDL requires that all derivative works are FDL- 
licensed), it is not necessarily true in the direction ''text in another  
license'' => ''FDL text''.

Said other license can set a minimum set of restrictions and allow an  
optional specific set of additional restrictions to be imposed for the  
purpose of license compatibility. Dual-licensing, e.g. CC-SA/FDL, would  
have the same effect.

This specifically addresses your concern of using Wikinews content to  
update Wikipedia articles. Given that Wikinews is not intended to be an  
encyclopedia, I think that background information from Wikipedia is best  
provided using links, which is not a problem.

But I agree with you absolutely that we should carefully consider such a  
deviation from our standard license, even in the form of dual licensing. I  
just do not think that local Wikimedia chapters, or the mother  
organization, should set the FDL into stone as the only license we want to  
use for our projects. Wikinews is just one example where I think that we  
need to look at the alternatives before making a decision.

>> But the FDL with its long license text
>> and complicated terms is not very practical for that.

> Then let's work on reducing the FDL down to its essentials, call that the
> FCL, have the FSF adopt it and create a FDL 2.0 that allows direct
> compatibility with invariant-section-free FDL content and the FCL (the FCL
> would in turn be compatible with the CC by-sa).

I think you overestimate the flexibility of the Free Software Foundation  
:-). Of course the "any higher version number" clause of the FDL allows us  
to make some improvements in future versions of the license, but these  
improvements depend entirely on how much the FSF is willing to accommodate  
our position. Given that the FSF has a significant number of documents  
licensed under the FDL which would be affected by such a change, the  
resistance to drastic changes - which are needed to address the problems  
of the FDL - will be strong. Keep in mind that the FDL was originally  
designed for print documents, and that existing print documents by the  
FSF, if they do not refer to a specific version number of the FDL, will  
also be affected by any changes.

Nevertheless, this is of course a road which we shall travel. Its mere  
existence should, however, not preclude us from contemplating the  
exploration of other paths.

>> There is even the
>> question if we really want to force Wikinews users to copyleft their
>> content, or if the public domain or an attribution license wouldn't be
>> more practical in this instance.

> Then that project would not be free content.

By the definition of the Free Software Foundation, that is correct.  
However, that definition is not the only one. In fact, most people have an  
entirely different understanding of "free content."

> Public domain and non-share-alike attribution licenses encourage mutually
> incompatible content forks where improvements that create derivative
> works cannot be re-incorporated back into the original - meaning there
> is no positive feeback loop.

Indeed, and the main question of copyleft vs. public domain / attribution- 
only licenses is "What is more important to me - enlarging the body of  
content available under a free license, or making sure that as many people  
as possbile will be exposed to the content in question?"  The possibility  
that we may want to answer this question differently for some Wikimedia  
projects than for others should not be discounted out of hand.

Make no mistake - the originally free content will always remain free in  
both instances.

Regards,

Erik