[Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal

[Sam Johnston]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:07 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> > "Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band"[1] is another stunning example of
> > attribution gone mad
>
> A few pages of names in a 1000 page book doesn't seem that mad to me.
> I think it makes an excellent point about how Wikipedia works.
>

Perhaps, but it delivers ZERO benefit to the pseudonymous individuals listed
and exacts a non-trivial toll on the reuser. This is further amplified for
partial reuse of a resource, reuse of multiple resources, reuse with
tangible mediums (esp non-print e.g. t-shirts) and so on.

Carrying on with the France example[1], you can double the length of that
list with IP numbers (which would likely have to be included too) and
consider that if the article has accrued 5,000 contributors over the last 5
years or so, how many will it have in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?

While the toll can be reduced by automation it cannot be removed altogether
and this does not change the fact that the result delivers ZERO value to
anyone (authors, readers, reusers, the environment and Wikipedia as a
whole).

Sam

1.
http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en.wikipedia&page=france