[WikiEN-l] good example of overuse of {{fact}}

[Steve Block]

Anthony wrote:
> On 10/19/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 10/17/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>> It's also a waste of time to state obvious facts in an encyclopedia
>> article.
>>
>> Obvious depends on prior knowledge; this is why obvious facts end up
>> in an encyclopedia, because for someone out there, they're not
>> obvious.
>>
>> (minor nitpick, agree with the rest of what you wrote)
> 
> 
> Looking back at the example, I guess the sort of thing like "Thomas
> Jefferson was the third president" does belong in an encyclopedia, and I can
> see how such a fact could be considered "obvious".
> 
> At the same time, I'd put this in the category of those facts which
> absolutely should be contained somewhere in the reference material, but need
> not be referenced by an individual footnote.
> 
> What's more controversial is "obvious" facts about public perceptions, such
> as the example Jimmy was talking about.
> 
> "Critics of the GPL often describe it as being
> "viral"<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft#Is_copyleft_.22viral.22.3F>,
> based on the GPL terms that all derived works must in turn be licensed under
> the GPL." (from [[GNU General Public License]])
> 
> What should we do with that?  {{fact}} tag it?  Remove it?  Leave it as is?
> Personally I'd say it should be removed.  I just removed, without logging
> in, the whole paragraph, which was nothing more than speculation regarding
> this "perception".  Let's see what happens.
> 
> Anthony
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> 
> 

Don't fancy putting it back in, do you?

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU 
General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that 
incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself 
become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is 
distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely 
available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the 
GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization 
making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent 
commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to 
distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product 
rather than just the cost of distribution.

Speech Transcript - Craig Mundie, The New York University Stern School 
of Business

Prepared Text of Remarks by Craig Mundie, Microsoft Senior Vice President
The Commercial Software Model
The New York University Stern School of Business
May 3, 2001


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