Alex, just a few points. I don't want us to get
all
worked up and argue
past each other.
First: the wiki is a means to an end. It's a *really
cool* means, but
fundamentally it's got a purpose other than just
being a fun way to pass
the time with some friendly folks.
That purpose is to "create an information source in
an encyclopedia
format that is freely available. The license we use
grants free access
to our content in the same sense as free software is
licensed freely.
That is to say, Wikipedia content can be copied,
modified, and
redistributed _so long_ as the new version grants
the same freedoms to
others and acknowledges Wikipedia as the source.
Wikipedia articles
therefore will remain free forever and can be used
by anybody subject to
certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure
that freedom."
(Quoted from Wikipedia:Copyrights.)
Third party reuse, modification, and redistribution
is a fundamental
goal of Wikipedia, not an unsavory side-effect of
the license. It is our
duty as Wikipedians to think of our readers, our
users, our
republishers, and provide them with good material
that should work well
as it is for an encyclopedia, and can be remolded to
other uses.
Third party reuse may have different goals from the
encyclopedia; for
instance adapting encyclopedia articles into
textbooks or lesson plans
or travel guides; narrowing the scope and adding
more technical detail;
widening the scope and reducing detail; giving
emphasis to a different
subject or point of view; altering the language to
suit a different age
group; translating to another language entirely;
adaptation to another
medium (voice, or narration for a video); etc. They
may be noncommercial
(distribution via web gratis) or commercial
(distribution of books or
DVDs for a fee, with "transparent" editable version
of FDL works
included or available on request for cost of
reproduction).
That's why for instance a number of us (of which I
am one) are so
suspicious of "fair use" images, where in our
editing/publishing
software images are not directly tied to their
usages, but "fair use" as
a legal concept is intimately connected to the
circumstances of a
particular usage. It creates another potential
barrier to re-use, which
harms the goals of the project.
Editions of articles that have been released to
Wikipedia are released
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License. They are never
un-published or withdrawn from circulation, though
perhaps they get
moved to the back shelf while a shinier new edition
is put up in the
front of the store. They continue to be further
published under that
license, because Wikipedia has no other license to
publish them under.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)
Maybe we should make it easier to include external
images. Then, in reprints from the server dump, it
would always either be linked externally or ignored.
No one's infringing, I don't think, especially if we
say that all externally linked images must be under
fair use. Externally linked images would also decrease
the server load.
LDan
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