On Sat, 28 May 2005, Timwi wrote:
Quite to the contrary, you only asked if the image
could be used on
Wikipedia, not whether they would license it under the GFDL or anything
else. Therefore, they only agreed to using it on Wikipedia, and
therefore it should not be used on Wikipedia because it isn't free.
I figured some (even most) people here may have this position. I'm a
Sysadmin who has been working almost exclusively with F/OSS for more than
11 years so have a good background in the licencing issues. It is from
this basis that I make these comments:
I think it is important to remember that most of the people in the world
have not even considered or heard of the issues related to licencing that
the people here (and in the OSS community) are familiar with.
If I had asked Mercedes Corby if I could licence the images under the GFDL
I'm sure she would not have had the slightest clue what I was talking
about. I'm certain her focus, then as now, is on her sister who has now
been convicted of a serious offence and sentenced to 20 years jail, not
licencing issues. I was not about to expect her to absorb alot of
information on licencing when she had more important things to worry
about. As far as I'm concerned I asked for images that were copyright
free and that is what I got.
Here we have images that (as far as I know) no one has objected to and yet
they may be deleted. IMHO we need to stop and consider the intent of a
grant to use an image, not just the specific wording of the grant because
most people in the world will not use the exact wording which seems to be
expected. If we do not then Wikipedia will ultimately be the loser.
I spent time and effort getting those image and I'm disappointed that they
may be deleted for a subtlety of licencing which is probably of absolutely
no concern to the person who took the image or most of the people viewing
the images. Although understanding of licencing is growing in the general
community most people will never care as much as a typical Wikipedia
contributor. We have to learn to live with this.
Also, to Anthere's comment that this should go to Wikien, after
considering I think this is the right list as the image could be use on
any in articles of any language.
Rob
--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: +1-416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway(a)opentrend.net
http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (
http://www.spi-inc.org)