>>>> "JW" == Jimmy Wales
<jwales(a)bomis.com> writes:
JW> I notice that you're currently using the Creative Commons
JW> by-sa (attribution share-alike) license. That's a good
JW> license, nearly identical in spirit to the GNU FDL but not, in
JW> my opinion, strictly compatible.
Yes, I'm pretty sure they're incompatible, actually.
JW> Since you're only a few days in, you could still switch to GNU
JW> FDL easily enough -- this might be best for you, if you
JW> envision a lot of content sharing between your site and
JW> wikipedia (which seems natural).
I realize that the license incompatibility with Wikipedia articles is
a serious problem.
http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:Why_Wikitravel_isn't_GFDL
However, I think that the GFDL isn't really compatible with our goals
for Wikitravel.
http://www.wikitravel.org/article/Wikitravel:Goals_and_non-goals
Specifically, we want to make it really easy for a tourist information
office, a hotel or guesthouse, or a party planner to have a stack of
copies of a Wikitravel article for use by customers/visitors.
The heavyweight nature of the GFDL would make it hard for them to
comply: just having to redistribute the entire license text and a
changelog makes it unreasonable for 1-2 page articles, and having to
distribute source code is just out of the question.
The Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 just requires a copyright notice and
the URL of the license -- small enough to fit in a little paragraph at
the end of an article.
It really bothers me a lot that the license incompatibilities make it
hard to borrow content from Wikipedia. I've thought about doing a dual
license, so that at least Wikitravel content could be shared into
Wikipedia, if not vice versa, but it seems like a lot of trouble (and
explaining).
The only consolation I have is that a lot of encyclopedic content
isn't really applicable for a travel guide. But there is a lot of
crossover. The trade-off is painful but apparently necessary.
JW> I'm enthusiastic about your project, and I think the idea is
JW> excellent.
Thanks for the support. We're excited about the project, too!
~ESP
--
Evan Prodromou
evan(a)prodromou.san-francisco.ca.us