David Goodman wrote:
Wikipedia is for use, and there is a primary use and a
secondary use.
The primary use is for people linking to the site and reading the
articles.
The secondary use is for people who wish to reuse the content for
other purposes.
WP is an encyclopedia, not a content distribution service, Commons, on
the other hand, is a content distribution service. For a content
distribution service for Foundation project operating under a variety
of copyright regimes, it is reasonable to include only material which
is free in all or almost all of them. For an encyclopedia, it is
reasonable to include content which is legal at the country where the
encyclopedia is published.
I've been involved in Wikipedia since fairly early on, and as far as I
recall, it was *always* a major objective of Wikipedia to be reusable
for other purposes. As soon as the decision was made to use the GFDL,
that was a given.
I think that you are creating a false dichotomy. Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia with content that is available for reuse. I know that many
people don't like that, and it's certainly possible for policy to change
over time. But that is and has always been the intent of Wikipedia.
-Rich Holton
(English Wikipedia User:Rholton, first edit November 18, 2003)