[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] contents under education/information licenses

Tue Nov 21 19:39:43 UTC 2006

David Gerard wrote:
> On 21/11/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>
>   
>> We're talking of Mr Jean Dupont, member of Parliament from a pro-Europe
>> party, waging a reelection campaign on a theme of "with Europe, we go
>> beyond" using photos of ESA rockets, and ESA getting an angry complaint
>> from Dupont's euroskeptic opponent and his party.
>> (Apparently, this has happened, and of course they were at least able to
>> say that this happened in violation of their policies. It would be more
>> difficult for them to deal with people acting within their policies.)
>>     
>
>
> So the problem here is that the euroskeptic opponent thinks this is
> ESA's problem, and that ESA feels it has to go along with this idea.
> That is: the problem you're describing is local politics rather than
> that open content licences are problematic.
>   
The significant point is that the complaint was taken seriously by 
anybody at all. If somebody in the US complained about a NASA photo in a 
supermarket ad, even the most timid NASA bureaucrat would feel safe in 
showing the letter around the office for a laugh, and then pitching it 
into the trash. The bureaucrat knows that even if the complainer somehow 
got the attention of a news reporter, it would be for a segment on all 
the nutjobs who waste NASA's time.

Stan