On 12/13/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I honestly thought the words "selling out" were invoked in a deliberate attempt to be inflammatory, as that's the only reason I'd use them. I guess I misunderstood, sorry.
In the sentence I used the phrase "sell out", I did put a smiley at the end. I dunno, reading it over again it wasn't meant to be inflammatory, and that actual sentence was meant to be humorous more than anything ("if you're gonna sell out, at least make a decent amount doing so").
Anyway, apology accepted, and since I could have phrased things more nicely I apologize for that.
I don't understand how we could be commited to free content yet opposed to certain groups from making free use of the free content or identifying and promoting its free source. I guess I don't understand your position at all.
I don't have a problem with Google using the free content in Google Earth. I'd like to say hey, if you use the free content then everything you package with it has to be free as well, but the GFDL almost surely doesn't say that, so it's irrelevant.
What I was specifically commenting on was the use of the Wikipedia logo. While you could argue that the logo should be free for anyone to use to identify Wikipedia content, that's not the reality of the situation. So the logo is more than just an identifier, it's a stamp of approval, and I don't think Google Earth deserves Wikipedia's stamp of approval. When there was a similar discussion regarding Answers Corporation I think the best argument against the partnership was based on the fact that the One-Click Answers software was proprietary and therefore not worthy of the Wikipedia name. At the time I still supported giving Answers a trial period while it became more clear whether or not anyone was interested in creating an open source competitor, but in hindsight even that was probably a mistake as it fails the "if you're gonna sell out, at least make a decent amount doing so" test.
Other than the logo, if all Google is doing is downloading the exact same dumps that are available to everyone else, then I don't have any problem with that part. Google is most likely in violation of the GFDL for various reasons, some of which were already mentioned (like having no history section), but so is pretty much everyone else, so that part I've avoided discussing (the next version of the GFDL will fix many of these issues anyway, and if the GNU Wiki License ever gets implemented it might solve all of them).
Finally, you say that Google is "identifying and promoting [the] free source" of the content. But to that I'd say Wikipedia isn't the source of the content, the individual authors are, and Google isn't identifying or promoting us at all. To quote you: "The foundation does not own the copyright to the content of Wikipedia, the editors do, the foundation did not create this encyclopedia the editors did, this project could continue without the foundation but not without the editors."
It seems I often can't figure you out and I feel bad about that. Perhaps we could meet in person sometime? Your choice of food or drink on me.
As far as not being able to figure me out, that's my fault I'm sure, since it's something I hear over and over again. I'll let you know about the meetup thing I guess.
And thanks for all the images you've contributed under a free license. Most of them are way better than anything I've ever done.
Anthony