[Foundation-l] Design for wikipedia's front page (and corporate)

[Erik Moeller]

On 5/19/06, Łukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
> No, the design should NOT be GFDL, CC-whatever or under any other free
> license. The webpage design is an integral part of the sites' visual
> identity, just as much as the project logos (if not more).

Let me quote from MonoBook's CSS definition:

** MediaWiki 'monobook' style sheet for CSS2-capable browsers.
** Copyright Gabriel Wicke - http://wikidev.net/
** License: GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html)
**
** Loosely based on
http://www.positioniseverything.net/ordered-floats.html by Big John
** and the Plone 2.0 styles, see http://plone.org/ (Alexander Limi,Joe
Geldart & Tom Croucher,
** Michael Zeltner and Geir Bækholt)
** All you guys rock :)

In other words, our own current design is a free content creation that
was only possible because of the free content work of others. Free
design is very much a part of the free content and free culture
movement, and Wikimedia is at the very center of that movement.

Has using a free content design that is derived from free content
designs harmed us in an identifiable and provable way? Your argument
is: "We are a top 20 website, so we should start acting like one". My
argument is: "We are a top 20 website because we _haven't_ acted like
one."

Sharing is good. Making the logos proprietary is one way of ensuring a
consistent identity. And you know what's one of the best arguments
against it? That people will start arguing that now that you've made
one part of your site proprietary, you should do the same for others.
That slope is very slippery.

I would strongly argue that any redesign that does not affect the
logos should be done under free content conditions.

Erik