[WikiEN-l] Invited by admin to leave en if concerned about free reusability

[George Herbert]

On 8/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/08/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> >   It seems that I was recently invited by an admin to leave the
> en:wikipedia
> > project...
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_comment%2FKelly_Martin2&diff=68969013&oldid=68968296
>
>
> Let's read and quote what it actually says there, shall we?
>
> "If you're here to do other things than make the best possible free
> encyclopedia, then -- to borrow a nauseatingly common theme from the
> other side's advocates -- the door's right over there."
>
> I think every word of that is the case and needs to be drummed into
> people's heads, myself.
>
> Note also it's an if-then. Your offence at the statement implies you
> meet the condition, and hence are here for some other reason. Is that
> what you meant?



The sentence before that is the problematic one.

Hero's full comment was:
*"We are largely still operating as if most people here are working to give
away a free, reusable encyclopedia, as if most editors here think of
themselves as part of the open
source<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source>/ free
culture movement <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_culture_movement>"* We
are? Maybe "we" better wake up. *It's supposed to be an encyclopedia*, not
some la-di-da "free culture movement" love-in. I'd say that many, many
editors think that the free-image-only policy is asinine -- which it is,
obviously, *if you want to build a first-rate encyclopedia.* If you're here
to do other things than make the best possible free encyclopedia, then -- to
borrow a nauseatingly common theme from the other side's advocates -- the
door's right over there.
Herostratus<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Herostratus>06:02, 11
August 2006 (UTC)


I would love to be able to use random professional copyrighted images for WP
articles; there are plenty of great images out there which we won't get
permission to use.

The impact on Wikipedia's redistributability - hence the "is this project
still free or not?" question - is significant if we change the image policy
much.

Is this policy subject to evolving consensus (and legal changes, etc?).
Sure.  Is it appropriate to ask people to leave just because they happen to
agree with current consensus, that the legal implications of non-free images
are much worse than what using them would bring to WP?  No.

Copyright law sometimes causes freely redistributable things all sorts of
pain and suffering.  If you want to work to change the law, feel free,
either through lobbying or court cases or whatnot.  Taking a too-free
interpretation of existing copyright law right now, though, could easily get
Wikipedia in a world of hurt.  There have been copyright cases with damages
and legal fees which exceed the net value of WMF.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com