[Wikipedia-l] Crown Copyright and the GNU FDL

[The Cunctator]

On 6/20/03 3:11 PM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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.
> 
The viral part isn't the problem, it's the other conditions. Yes, it's
incompatible with the GFDL.