[Foundation-l] RfC: A Free Content and Expression Definition

Mon May 1 17:28:24 UTC 2006

--- Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/1/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Derivative works are by no means essential for
> > Wikisource.
> 
> I disagree. A document that cannot legally be
> translated, for
> instance, cannot be called a free document.
> Wikisource is, by
> definition and philosophy, a repository of free
> works, similar to what
> Commons provides for non-textual materials. If you
> use the logic "but
> the document is important", you are on a slippery
> slope of changing
> Wikisource into a repository for materials under
> _any_ license which
> allows free downloads, including "permission granted
> to Wikimedia" and
> similar non-free arrangement.
> 

That is not the case whatsoever.  We are commited to
hosting freely distributable works.  Please not put
words in my mouth.  You are trying to define "free" in
way to exclude such documents, that does not make them
non-free in general.  In all truth no matter how you
limit the licenses, the material of Wikimedia will not
be universally free everywhere.  Such a blanket
guarantee is not possible, so we must do our best to
keep things both as free and available as possible. 
It is a balancing act not a black and white line.  Why
else is there an exception for fair use?

> > The fact that we cannot translate a work
> > for the French Wikisource does not lessen the
> value to
> > the English Wikisource.  There is already a policy
> in
> > place which allows the works of French writers to
> > treated as public domain in the English Wikisource
> yet
> > forbidden the French Wikisource per disscusion on
> this
> > very list.
> 
> That's interesting. Could you point me to this
> policy? I recall the
> discussion, but not the conclusion.
> 
> Erik

We do not have any sorts of crosslanguage policy, but
that was the end result.  Yann was told that the
French Wikisource must remove the works while some of
them have always been available on the English
Wikisource in translation and have never violated the
enWS copyright policy.  There now exists a soft fork
of Wikisource.  I will not try to pin this on any one
decision over these matters, but I understand the
frustrations which the editors must have felt lead
them to such action.

BirgitteSB

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