[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project boring to death

[Sherool]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:44:49 +0200, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

<snip>
> As for whether or not ND licenses are "compatible" with the GFDL, it
> seems to me that they're just as compatible as CC-BY-SA licenses.
> You're not suggesting that these must be removed from Wikipedia, are
> you?

There is in fact a big difference between the two. The GFDL  
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License>  
states  :

"You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the  
conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the  
Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version  
filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and  
modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of  
it(...)".

So if you use a "no modifications" license you have less freedoms than  
what you are granted by the GFDL, so the license is not GFDL compatable.

The CC-BY-SA and simmilar licenses are however compatable because the  
requirements are equal to, or less restrictive than those imposed by the  
GFDL. The GFDL is a share alike license, so it is not a problem that  
CC-*-SA requre derivative works to use the same license, GFDL does the  
same. GFDL also require at least 5 (or all if less than 5) previous  
editors to be credited, CC-BY-* type licenses "only" require than credit  
is given to the author as spesified by him/her.

So no reason to get rid of all the CC-BY-SA stuff.

<snip>
> And while we're at it, we should either remove [[Image:Wikimedia.png]]
> from the User namespace or examine why policy allows that one too.
> Allowing that one in the User namespace is just plain old hypocrisy.

That is a very good point. I have never realy seen a straight explanation  
for why those logos are permited (or when they are not permited). I  
believe the foundation have allowed them to be used in various "meta"  
templates and such, but I'm not sure if the implications to our overall  
copyright policy have ever been examined, or if we just keep them around  
by force of old habbit...

-- 
[[:en:User:Sherool]]