[WikiEN-l] "Editorial purposes only" images

Thu Sep 30 15:44:18 UTC 2004

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 07:46:42 -0400, Anthony DiPierro
<anthony_dipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think you're thinking of public domain, not GFDL.  GFDL is not absolute
> freedom.  Furthermore, we haven't committed ourselves to the GFDL, only the
> spirit of the GFDL.

Sorry to only pick up on one point out of a whole e-mail, but we are
absolutely committed to the GFDL, whether we like it or not: anything
that we use 99.99% of the content already submitted for has to be
compatible with the GFDL, because that is the licence it has been
submitted to us under.

As I say, we can do two things with images:
(1) distribute a GFDL version of Wikipedia with only those images that
are compatible with the GFDL, and a separate version which includes
all images, but is under a more restrictive licence that is compatible
with the licence of *all* images used; fair use images, strictly,
should not appear in the former; and the latter may actually breach
the GFDL's terms for "derivative works" for all I know.
or (2) throw out any image that is not GFDL-compliant

AFAIK, currently, we are following option (0), which is "fudge it by
saying we haven't decided yet, and offer the images for reuse under a
label saying 'these may or may not actually be legal for you to
reuse'; and rely on the fact that nobody hates us enough yet to
challenge us over it". I may be wrong on that bit, but that's my
understanding.

-- 
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]