On 9 September 2017 at 13:27, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
On 6 September, Wikimedia Israel, held an event to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Wikipedians, volunteers, partners, and donors gathered to celebrate the success they had all participated in making.
This is good; congratulations to all involved.
However...
- *Oren Helman, former director of the Government Press Office*: as
director of the GPO, Helman assisted in promoting an amendment to copyright law, by which state photographs were released to free, non-commercial use, thereby exempting the public from paying for usage of GPO photos. Helman’s work to release state materials is unique in Israel. Together with former ministers Michael Eitan and Meir Sheetrit, Mr. Helman heralded a change in the state of Israel’s attitude toward open content.
Material with a "non-commercial use" restriction is not "open content".
the government of Israel made a precedent-setting decision to release all the photographs on government websites under Creative Commons licenses. The law amendment was nicknamed the ‘Wikipedia law’.
Which licences?