[Foundation-l] A license for the Ultimate Wiktionary

Fri May 20 14:38:47 UTC 2005

Milos Rancic wrote:

>(To correct myself...)
>
>I think that there is no need to avoid GNU FDL terms. Just put
>gzipped/bzip2ed history inside of package and in all of articles
>put reference (that contribution history can be found in that file).
>  
>
Hoi,
Apparantly you do not understand that there are several issues that make 
the GNU-FDL not practical.

*Wiktionary data cannot be imported properly into Ultimate Wiktionary. 
UW has no room for gzipped or bzipped history. It is a server side 
database and nobody is going to see the information in this way.
*Ultimate Wiktionary  will import data from many Wiktionaries, the first 
one could be the nl:wiktionary. Many articles have been copied to and 
from the it:wiktionary. Suppose an article is shared, it arrived first 
from the nl:wikipedia so that one rules.. right ? Now what history 
should we have with the article ?? From a GNU-FDL point of view it is 
unforseen, crazy.
*When we keep all these histories, who can say it is "my" work? I 
contributed to it ??
*When we export content to the .dict or RFC 2229 format, this is a 
subset of the data that we have on a word, a concept. We have the UW 
history and all these Wiktionary histories. Histories for each word. 
Histories for possibly a file with a few fields like: "Word" 
"Description" "Translation" "Original source". The amount of bagage that 
we should carry according to the GNU-FDL is unforseen and crazy. It just 
does not make sense. It is also data that has no stucture. Who will ever 
look at it ??

My conclusion is that the current GNU-FDL does not funtion for atomic 
information like we will have in Ultimate Wiktionary. When it prevents 
the implementation of new use for the data that we have, it becomes a 
hindrance. The goal of the Wikimedia Foundation is to make Free 
information available. When a license like the GNU-FDL only allows for 
server side information that has a static structure, I am sure that even 
Richard Stallman will find the arguments to ammend the GNU-FDL compelling.

One crucial thing in all this is that Free information should stay Free 
and be accessible. The current Wiktionary data is as closed as any 
proprietary datacollection. This is because of its lack of structure. It 
cannot be used for anything but server side information. Ultimate 
Wiktionary intends to combine the strength of the information that we 
have in all our wiktionaries, it will be structured. It does allow 
accessibility and new innovative uses. By being Free, accessible and 
innovative, we will gain a much wider public, these will not only be 
users of our data but also providers of data. This is what we aim for.

In the current nl:wiktionary we have people and organisations like 
FrankC and www.ziekenhuis.nl who contributed big time to the content of 
Wiktionary. We do need to recognise their contributions. They donated 
important body of works but we also have people like MARCEL and S.V.E.T 
who added content on a regular basis, it is important that we recognise 
their hard work and their contributions. They make and made it the 
success it is. So if anything, we should find a way to honour the 
members of our Wiktionary community as we move forward to an Ultimate 
Wiktionary.

Thanks,
    GerardM