[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues (David Cuenca)

[Theo10011]

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Geoff Brigham <gbrigham at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> As Achal pointed out, we will put resources into researching this issue in
> depth and hopefully finding a solution that may work.  It will probably
> take a month or two to ensure we are looking at all possibilities to see if
> this is possible.  If you have any great ideas, please feel free to send
> them to me, and I will ensure our team will consider them fully.
>
> This will be an interesting project, and I greatly appreciate everyone's
> interest in finding a lawful solution that ensures the distribution of all
> materials in the public domain.


Well, this was interesting to note. In stark contrast to the other thread,
this email was disappointing for the wrong reasons, maybe it's for me
alone. It took about 70 emails and 3 threads, and 2 days of waiting to get
a reply from the concerned staff members, but I believe Achal forwarded
this to Wikimedia-l less than 12 hours before you responded on a Sunday and
agreed to devote a month's resources to it. I don't think more than 2-3
people responded to the issue either on this list or the Indian one. I
guess that's the sole difference of the position he occupies, speaking of
which, the advisory board appointments seem indefinite, and the list
doesn't seem to have been updated - for the past 2 years I have only seen
Achal identify himself as that. As far as I know Mr. Prabhala has not even
logged in to an existing wikisource project, or uploaded anything on
commons beyond anything relevant to the last grant.

I ask because this issue was brought up a couple of years ago on the same
list[1] and received a lot more attention locally than this time.
Completely regardless of the issue itself, I know of several individuals,
and committees waiting for answers from the legal department, and actually
expect to wait weeks. I barely see you respond directly on a list these
days, and you are agreeing to devote a month's resources at his behest
alone so quickly.

Glad to be reminded how somethings change and somethings stay the same. And
speaking for me alone, it's disappointing to note the difference in tone
above vs. the one being employed on the other thread.

-Theo

[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-August/004080.html