Re: [Wikiml-l] [Wikimediaindia-l] Buzz ...

Would you like to share some information about your latest effort? Naveen, Thanks for sharing this news in India list. As Naveen mentioned below, the license of http://www.ldfkeralam.org/ is changed to a free license that is compatible with the wikipedia license. LDF is the current ruling coalition of Kerala. Now it is election season in Kerala and the above site is setup as part of election campaign. The IT sub-committee of LDF in principle has decided to use free licenses and free software in various places. Many of the people behind http://www.ldfkeralam.org/ have awareness about free software. In fact the site admin is a veteran Malayalam wikipedian. When LDF had decided to start the site, the license of the site was decided as CC-BY-SA 2.5 IN<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/deed.en>en>. But unfortunately when the site is released to public, license was pointing to a NC-ND license<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/deed.en>en>. I pointed this and they immediately corrected it. It was possible only because the people behind the site have awareness about the importance of free software licenses. Later when other district committees of LDF started website they also followed it since the mother site is using free license. There were cases of some district commitees using NC/ND license. But they corrcted it as soon as we pointed the issue in using non-free licenses. *Now there are many LDF sites using free license.* Wiki community could use photos (and the content also) of some of the notable LDF candidates. Since the content and images are free, people could freely use it across web for their blog, buzz, and so on. Few days back I have shared this story with few Indian language wikimedians. I requested some of them to see whether it is possible to replicate this in other Indian states. For instance, how easy or difficult was it to convince government Awareness about free software and free licenses among government officials is very important. If the officials sitting at the other end doesn't have awareness about these things then nothing is possible. In the past, Malayalam wiki community and other Malayalam free software organizations (for example, SMC) have initiated various programs to create that awareness. We are happy to see that slowly that efforts are yielding. In Kerala, this is not the first time State Government or political parties or non government organizations are changing the license of their website to a license that is compatible with Wikipedia license. As mentioned in this mail thread, <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-November/001260.html>way back in 2008, Kerala Government had officially announced that it is changing the license of govt. encyclopedic project in Malayalam (sarvavijanakosam) to Free documentation license<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>so that Malayalam wiki community could reuse its content to develop Malayalam wikipedia. This was done in 2008 December while Jimmy and Sue were in Thiruvananthapuram to attend the free software conference. We expect more happy news in the near future. Shiju On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Anirudh Bhati &lt;anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: > This is amazing! Congratulations, Shiju. > Would you like to share some information about your latest effort? For > instance, how easy or difficult was it to convince government officials? > Did it involve going into a lot of details with them? > Yours sincerely, > Anirudh Bhati > 00 91 9328712208 > Skype: anirudhsbh > On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Naveen Francis &lt;naveenpf(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: >> Hi all, >>> It is election season in Kerala. >> I have one good news to share with you all. >> Shiju Alex has convinced LDF election web team to change there site >> license to creative commons license. >> http://www.ldfkeralam.org/ >>> And now we are having images of candidates in commons and process is in >> progress. >>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_ldfkeralam.org_w… >>> Before this we didn't had images for many ministers in Kerala >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_S_Achuthanandan_Ministry >>> He has also convinced http://www.ldfkannur.org/ web team to change there >> license. Now they are also creative commons. >>> Thanks a lot Shiju !!! ... Need more site creative commons >>> I think it is change in happening though it is slow. >>> -- >> Naveen Francis >>> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list >> Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l >>> _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaindia-l mailing list > Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l