[Foundation-l] Mission/Vision Statement

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 1/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 1/6/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In particular, I wonder why the "on the Internet free of charge" bit
> > was added to the mission statement.
>
> To emphasize the free licensing / free availability distinction, and
> to make it explicit that we are committed to both (which we very much
> are).

What happens when webpages are replaced by GopherNG? ;)  I don't think
the technological binding makes sense in our mission. It's too deep in
the weeds.

In terms of "free licensing / free availability distinction" we're
also failing on that mark with the words "under a free license or in
the public domain" because "free license" is used to refer to both
Free Content licenses as well as "non-free content licenses which are
available for public use at no charge". I suspect the price or ability
to alter the license itself is immaterial to our goals ;).   If we are
going to expand the mission beyond a single sentence I'd much rather
see a highly condensed version of the free content definition in it.

"content which free of legal restrictions for all applications and
adaptations without cost, in all mediums, to all people, for all
perpetuity." or something like that.