[WikiEN-l] RE: defining Free Encyclopedia

Fri Aug 20 21:22:07 UTC 2004

Yes, if you read my last post to the wiken list, viewable here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-August/029985.html, I think I made it clear that I was using the term copyright too loosely. What I meant, was material released under a non-gnu-compatible license. We should draw a line between gnu-compatable content, and non-gnu-compatable content on the software side, to better facilitate removal of that content by future users of our content. Otherwise, we are sacrificing the freeness of our encyclopedia. If we leave things the way they are, there is no telling how hard it will actually be to remove this non-free content in the future.

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:23:55 -0300, Jeff Warnica <jeffw at chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-20-08 at 12:58 -0400, Michael Becker wrote:
> > I'm forwarding my message to the wikitech list because I think this
> > might be of more interest to you people than wikipedians at large.
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Michael Becker <mbecker at jumpingjackweb.com>
> > Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:43:09 -0400
> > Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] defining Free Encyclopedia
> > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> >
> > though, as long as there is a hard line drawn between copyrighted and
> > GPL material, it should be easy enough to remove. If we don't
> > facilitate the easy removal of this content, the wikipedia is no
> 
> The opposite of copyrighted is "public domain". Works covered by the
> GPL, and the FDL ARE copyrighted. It is copyright law that provides for
> the legal backing of the GPL/FDL (and for that matter, _any_ license).
> 
> 

-- 
Michael Becker