From: "David Merrill" <david(a)lupercalia.net>
...
> This article is from Wikipedia
(
http://wikipedia.com), the free
> online encyclopedia. You can find this article at
>
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page ...
Absolutely. Require that text at the bottom of each
page, then?
Something like that. I'd like to get to that soon. I think I'd like to
find some plausible way to leave the exact wording open. The only
disputed issue of any significance, I believe, is whether we will
require a link back to the actual article URL on Wikipedia. I know
there's been a lot of resistance to that, but it's really important, if
we're going to get a lot of new contributors, that people be able to
find the original article quickly and easily.
If I
decide I want to do something slightly different, can I approach you
with my proposal? I suggest you state in the copyright and GFDL
implementation text that you can be approached for special situations.
No general solution is going to work for everyone.
Yes. Good point.
Does Bomis hold official copyright on Wikipedia?
Yes, more or less. I'm not sure what that means. I'll leave it to
Jimbo to articulate a position on that, which I believe he might already
have done.
I didn't see it on
the site.
And that's another problem we need to rectify. :-( It's just a matter
of getting it right and getting around to it.
You really should post a copyright notice on the main
page,
directly, which includes the implementation of the license in it.
That's my understanding too.
I am concerned that you run into a violation of the
*spirit* of the
GFDL, if not the precise letter, if you require some large or
intrusive attribution on derivative works that doesn't exist on the
live Wikipedia pages. In my case especially, since it isn't really a
`derivative work' but just a downstream packaging of Wikipedia
content, as it were.
Maybe it would help, in some way, to include the notice on each
Wikipedia page, indeed; that might remove some of the objections people
have.
Hopefully, given my track record of unpaid volunteer
work for the
Linux Documentation Project, and now some fair amount of unpaid
volunteer work for the Wikipedia, you know that I'm not a money
grubber who is trying to take advantage of Wikipedia or Bomis. I want
to see you get fair attribution. My goals, in large part, are your
goals. I want you to succeed. However, I also want the maximum
flexibility in how I attribute you, within reasonable parameters of
course. Your suggestion here sounds like something I can live with.
Good!
I've also decided definitely that all Wikipedia
content that is
packaged beside the LDP documents in Linux distributions will contain
a live linkback to directly edit the page. That could easily bring a
million Linux users to Wikipedia every month. More if you count the
local page views. That is a good thing for Wikipedia and for Linux.
No kidding, that would be fantastic.
Please give me your views or guidelines on how I might
approach this
effort. My goal is to start having Wikipedia content used as part of
Linux help, but I don't want to move the LDP over wholesale (and it
would be rude to my authors, even those who GFDL'ed), nor do I want to
simply leech. I'm just knocking around ideas right now, so if you can
suggest any I should consider I'd appreciate hearing them.
Well, I'm not sure what else you need other than our recommended
wording, whatever it will be.
I will be formatting the output differently from
Wikipedia, though. I
will make the output look as similar as I can to the other documents.
I have to merge man pages, html, and docbook documents, and it is a
challenge to make the presentation of all those documents seamless
across format, but that's what I'm trying to do. I want the transition
to and from Wikipedia pages within the Linux documentation database to
be similarly seamless. I'll attribute Wikipedia pages, and probably
put up a logo for graphical browser users.
Sounds groovy.
I will run the final stylesheets past you once I get
to that point.
Live release in actual Linux distributions is probably six months
away, so there is no hurry. I promise to be very amenable to following
your suggestions, as long as you keep in mind that the user experience
comes first in my page layout philosophy!
Well, it has *never* been our desire to ask anyone to do anything that
would make the user experience less than optimal. (I happen to think
that clearly-presented information about the source of an article
definitely enhances the user experience--but not, necessarily, in the
form of even a small table banner.)
Thanks for resolving this issue quickly. It really is
fundamental and
the sooner you resolve it, the better for everyone. Then it becomes a
non-issue and we can all get back to work where we should be. :-)
Sorry it wasn't sooner! I should have read this sooner, or I would have
seen that it is really high priority.
Larry
Regards,
--
Dr. David C. Merrill
http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project david(a)lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator
http://www.linuxdoc.org
We turn the wheel to welcome her
Every breath is sacred
Opening, we welcome her
Every breath is sacred
As we walk this ancient path
Every breath is sacred
We are stronger than we know
Every breath is sacred
-- The Midwife's Song, Calla Unsworth
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