On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 18:21, Axel Boldt wrote:
Concretely, the guy who is writing or contributing to
a science
textbook under a license that prohibits commercial distribution, or
doesn't require authorship acknowledgements, or doesn't allow invariant
sections, or allows modifications without changing the title etc. etc.
does not get anything out of Wikipedia. No intellectual property rights
for this dude.
This hypothetical dude remains free to republish and release derivative
works of the GFDL material under the GFDL. He can run a handsome side
business printing and selling GFDL'd textbooks with Wikipedia material
if he likes.
However, if he wants to publish GFDL'd material under a different
license (which does not provide the same guarantees to the next set of
users that he enjoys), he needs the explicit permission of the copyright
holder(s). So no, without that (which may be difficult to get on a
project like Wikipedia where there are many anonymous contributors) he
can't use it in his non-free, business-hating, anti-author science
textbook. ;)
So Encyclopedia Britannica sucks in the Wikipedia
contents, locks them
up and improves upon them. Does that hurt me in any way? Or anybody
else for that matter? I still have precisely the same amount of freedom
I had before they decided to to that. Wikipedia is still free. If
anything, I benefit because more people get to read my material and I
get to read Britannica's improvements.
Read, yes. Republish and further improve upon, no.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)