[Wikipedia-l] Re: The case against "invariant sections"

[Guardian Tor]

> On Saturday 15 June 2002 12:01 pm, Axel wrote:
> > The FOLDOC computing dictionary has been licenced to us under GFDL
> > without invariant sections. We have incorporated many articles from
> > them. Two weeks ago, somebody asked me whether the material from our
> > TeX article (http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/TeX), which was originally
> > based on FOLDOC's but has since grown considerably, could be
> > reintegrated into FOLDOC. The answer is: only if they put our
> > Wikipedia table into the FOLDOC entry, which they are unlikely to do
> > because it doesn't really fit with their article formatting.
> 
> Uh oh, if this is true then this is evil (TM). We should be not be limiting 
> the exchange of wikipedia text in this way -- especially with somebody else 
> using the same darn license. They let us use their initial text, we shouldn't 
> be placing unnecessary restrictions on the use of our material (especially 
> when we are, like Axel mentions, the obvious leader of the Open/Free Content 
> movement). All we should do is ask them to link to the wikipedia version of 
> the text -- not require this by insisting on the use of invariant sections or 
> by any other means for that matter.

This is a rather old issue that never quite got resolved. There was quite a bit of opposition to the table idea (which was taken from dmoz), and it was generally agreed that while a linkback should be required, we should not require the big (and ugly) dmoz-style table. The problem is that once this agreement was reached, the issue kind of faded into the background.

I think we should get this firmly resolved.
-- 
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