[WikiEN-l] thefreedictionary.com

[Andrew Famiglietti]

Hey everybody! I've been lurking around here for awhile, but haven't posted
before.

I just wanted to bring something to the attention of this list. It seems the
website thefreedictionary.com, which has been mirroring wikipedia content
for awhile now, has produced some sort of widget that gives an "article of
the day" with a link back to a wikipedia they are mirroring.

Here's the thing, the widget doesn't credit wikipedia. It just says "Free
content provided by The Free Dictionary." Isn't the widget a derivative work
based on the wikipedia article (it includes a preview paragraph of text)? As
such, shouldn't it have to credit wikipedia under the terms of the GFDL?

What do people think about this? Is it a bad thing? Is it a GFDL violation?

You can see lots of examples of the widget in action if you google "Free
content provided by The Free Dictionary." Or you can go to:
http://www.malaspina.com/home.htm to see one example.

-Andy