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

Tue May 2 08:22:34 UTC 2006

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> Content which forbids derivied works is not anymore free content than
> content you can use but not distribute.  Both are without cost, both
> deny you what would be considered natural rights without copyright,

The Wikimedia Foundation maintains archives of its own mailing 
lists, for example this one.  Is that free contents?  Should I be 
allowed to modify and distribute the record of what you said?

Suppose Google's big Usenet archive or the site Gmane.org had to 
close down, and the Wikimedia Foundation could take over the 
contents.  That's where I think a CC-ND license could make sense.

Recently I've been looking into MusicBrainz.org, where the core 
database of CD albums, tracks, and artists is released into the 
public domain ("the product"), but data relating to the user 
community ("the factory") is released under a Creative Commons 
license that only allows non-commercial (NC) use.

This makes me wonder if Wikipedia user and talk pages really need 
to be released under exactly the same license as the main article 
namespace.  I don't remember that this was analyzed.  User pages 
were just introduced (in 2002) without talks of licensing.  And I 
don't think anybody discussed the licensing for the mailing list 
archives, which are indeed very close to user page discussions.

This also reminds me of Erik Möller's Kuro5hin posting "Creative 
Commons -NC Licenses Considered Harmful", 
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655
where some of the reader comments made me realize that there can 
be cases where NC makes sense, and other cases where it is 
harmful.  Maybe the same goes for ND.

Are we trying to force every foot into the same shoe here?

-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se