[Wikipedia-l] Crown Copyright and the GNU FDL

[Daniel Mayer]

It seems that some of our ship text has been copied from websites using the 
Crown Copyright which reads in part;

"....may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for research, 
private study or for internal circulation within an organisation."

That may cover Wikipedia itself but not downstream users of our text.

"This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a 
misleading context."

Having this text on a wiki leads to a very real possibility that the text will 
be modified to be something it wasn't before. It is also a very subjective 
clause.

"Where any of the Crown copyright items on this site are being republished or 
copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the 
copyright status acknowledged."

In other words the Crown Copyright is viral. This IMO is wholly incompatible 
with the GNU FDL. 

What say you?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)