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

[John Vandenberg]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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".

Which Wikisource is this?

I have found similar problems on small wikis; often they are happy to
have assistance if it is done carefully and is not rushed.

Cheers,
John Vandenberg