[Wikipedia-l] open content, GNU FDL, and open format specifications

[Lars Aronsson]

I have a naive question re the FDL discussions.  If Wikipedia is "open
content" under the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) and special
Wikipedia add-on license, do you also provide a full specification of
the text format you use?  For example, the specification that says
that ''this is italics'', that [[foo]] is a link to article Foo and
that [[foo|bar]] is a link to Foo that displays as "bar"?  And the
specification that says ISBN:0-13-080360-X is to be interpreted as an
ISBN number with links to online bookstores.

In my own wiki website, I have modified the format and included new
rules.  If I were to release my wiki-website's content under FDL,
would I also have to include a full specification of the format I use?
Does the GNU FDL require this?  Sorry, I haven't read it.

One of my added rules is that sys:411 is to be interpreted as a link
to product number 411 in the catalog of the Swedish Alcohol Monopoly
System.  (This is almost as useful as ISBN numbers.  Everybody who
writes about wine or liqueur will use them as reference.)  Another
rule is that linux:ls(1) is to be interpreted as a link to the Linux
manual page for the command "ls" in section 1 of the manual.  I also
have an openbsd:ls(1) version, for fairness.

Contributors to my wiki learn some of these rules and use them.  But
if I only release the content as is, it would be really hard to guess
exactly what is what.  It would be fair to say that the content would
be useless without the format specification.

Will people volunteer their contributions to an open content project
that doesn't publish its full format specifications?


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linköping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se