[Foundation-l] Copies of Wikipedia's articles found on Knol

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Mike Godwin wrote:
> Newyorkbrad writes:
>
>   
>> I'm also curious how the problem can run in both directions.  I can
>> understand that one license would be more restrictive than the  
>> other, such
>> that material from project A couldn't be freely used in project B.   
>> But the
>> nuances of the license requirements must be subtle indeed if the
>> incompatability runs both ways.  Not being a license terms  
>> aficionado, I'd
>> appreciate a layman's explanation of the issues.
>>     
>
> Keep in mind that this is unexplored territory even for me, but I can  
> give you my impressions of the problems I see with the three licensing  
> options Knol offers.
>
> 1) With regard to CC-BY:
>
> It's not a question of one license's being more restrictive than the  
> other, exactly. It's that the Share Alike (SA) requirement, which  
> makes the content truly copyleft, can't be added or subtracted in any  
> straightforward way that I can see. (Note that for purposes of  
> simplicity I am lumping together GFDL -- Wikipedia's current licensing  
> standard -- and CC-BY-SA.  Their requirements are substantively mostly  
> the same although formally different.)
>
> How could you add SA, for example, without being the original  
> licensor, for importing to Wikipedia? How could you subtract it  
> without being the original licensor(s), for importing to Knol?
>
>   

Perhaps I am being just too dense, but my answer
would be _not_ "without being the original licensor(s)".
That is, by *being* the original licensor, or by obtaining
their explicit permission.

I am not clear that CC-BY constitutes an explicit
permission to use in Wikipedias current fashion,
since I am not either a copyleft specialist, but I
could imagine some would so argue.

We have, as far as I know, no problem accepting
contributions from people who live in countries
which acknowledge "moral rights", such as my
own (Finland), and which are thus fundamentally
*more* restrictive than CC-BY as a baseline in a
form that makes is so that PD does not really
exist in those countires at all.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen