[Foundation-l] deviation from the GFDL in smaller projects

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Recently i have been lurking around many smaller WMF projects. (When i
say "smaller", i refer to Wikipedias which are smaller then the
biggest ones - yes, that means almost all Wikipedias - and to
non-Wikipedia projects in languages which have an established
Wikipedia, as they are usually smaller than the Wikipedia in the same
language.)

One worrying thing that i noticed is that in some of these projects
there is no strict adherence to GFDL-only text. Since my first day in
Wikipedia i understood how important the GFDL is. I understood that
articles cannot be copied verbatim even from sources whose copyright
terms allow copying for non-commercial usage, because the "free" in
"The Free Encyclopedia" does not refer only to price.

There is, however, a de-facto consensus in most projects that non-text
media (images, sounds) can be uploaded as fair use (es.wiki is a
notable exception). PLEASE READ FURTHER: THIS EMAIL IS NOT A PROTEST
AGAINST FAIR USE IMAGES.

What i started noticing recently is that certain projects allow TEXT
which is GFDL-incompatible.

For example, a certain Wikipedia admits to taking certain texts from
copyrighted sources which allow verbatim copying if the source is
cited, but not free modification. Their rationale is that their
language is under-privileged and has few proficient volunteer writers.

Another Wikipedia has a template on thousands of articles saying that
they were copied from a copyrighted online encyclopedia and asks the
editors not to enhance them. (I have to admit that i have limited
understanding of this language, but i'm pretty sure that i got this
one correctly.) Unlike in the first example, this is a very well
established literary language with millions of educated writers.

A Wikisource in another language accepts texts which are outright
copyrighted "by a special arrangement with the publisher, which
allowed their free (as in beer) publication in Wikisource".

Does the foundation allow autonomy in such matters to projects? I
believe that it is not the case.

I intentionally don't name the languages, because i don't really want
to act like a cop, especially not in a community of which i am only a
lurker.

I do ask the Foundation this: If the GFDL is important to WMF, please
have some serious WMF representative reiterate the importance of GFDL
to the apparent leaders of ALL projects, not just Wikipedias.

Of course, if the GFDL is not important to WMF, then forget it...

-- 
Amir Elisha Aharoni

heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com

"We're living in pieces,
 I want to live in peace." - T. Moore