[Foundation-l] RfC: Draft licensing policy resolution

[Erik Moeller]

On 3/5/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> If you read carefully you will have noticed that there is no need for a
> consensus in all the projects. First of all, where the board makes a ruling
> that some things are not acceptable they are not acceptable.

Indeed. I don't expect that, in the current, highly diverse community
of Wikimedia projects, there would _ever_ be consensus for either a
strong position on freedom, or a strong position on inclusiveness. I
would expect that support for freedom is higher among regular
contributors. Importantly, it represents a core value that has been
part of this project since the very beginning, even before Wikipedia
itself was launched. It is useful to review the first public
announcement on the Nupedia project, made in March 2000:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.skating.ice.recreational/browse_thread/thread/adf490040e1ed203/27789abb074ffb77

"What does it mean to say the encyclopedia is "open content"? This
means that anyone can use content taken from Nupedia articles for all
purposes, both for-profit or non-profit ..."

(I also always find it interesting that this mission statement was
already ambitious enough to suggest that Nupedia should "become the
largest general encyclopedia in the history of humankind.")

Part of the job of the Board is to strengthen and build the support
for freedom in our community, but that doesn't mean that we would ever
abandon this principle -- even if a majority of contributors opposed
it. It is a foundation value (with both a lower and upper case F).
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic