Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 11:33:05AM -0700, Ray Saintonge
wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
When whole Wikipedia will be included in Linux
distros, distributed on CDs,
and articles from Wikipedia will be used by hundreds of books and magazines
and thousands of web sites, how are you going to do that ?
We'd better play safe here.
How others use the material is their problem, and their risk. We
shouldn't have to baby-sit them. Whatever license or copyrights are
applied to Wikipedia reflects a collective comfort level. The user is
still responsible for his own due-dilligence, no matter how conservative
we are on the matter.
They're not "others", lot of "them" are Wikipedians.
If everyone had to consult a lawyer before distributing free software,
it wouldn't be half as successful as it is now.
Perhaps the others are Wikipedians, but that does not absolve them of a
responsibility of due diligence when they contribute to an outside
project. If anything, by being aware of the present debate they may
become subject to a higher standard than a non-Wikipedian. One of the
purposes of fair use and safe harbor provisions is to remove the need to
consult lawyers every time you want to add something of uncertain copyright.
Anything that doesn't allow Debian and other
distros distribute Wikipedia
in their main section is not acceptable. (That means DFSG and OSI
compatibility, and "fair use" is clearly incompatible with these rules,
btw. invariant sections/front and back covers etc. of GFDL are also
incompatible with DFSG, negotiations with FSF are in process now to fix
that problem with GFDL, plain GFDL is DFSG-compatible)
At some point along the way I get lost in the subtle distinctions that
separate this alphabet soup of licenses. I'm sure that the average
contributor doesn't waste much time on it either. Similarly, when we
install a new piece of software, how many of us really read and
understand the legalese bafflegab of licences. We just click on yes,
because if we don't the program won't work. When we contribute to
Wikipedia we agree to the principle that we want our writing to be
generally available to the public to use as it sees fit, and that we are
sharing it with like-minded individuals. We don't worry about the
contortions of armchair lawyers.
The practical principle that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get
permission goes a long way as long as it is applied with a level of
common sense whereby we restrain ourselves from flagrant abuse. The
rule of law is a good thing, but too much law is simply ignored.
All major open projects are very serious about legal issues, and none
would accept "just a few lines of code" from dubious source.
Some are more paranoid (like FSF and Debian), some are less,
but there is no single project that would accept code or other
content under "fair use", as that's very likely to cause them,
their users and their distributors lot of serious legal problems.
But this is about content rather than code. I can easily see where an
inappropriately used section of code could bring a whole project to a
halt if it ever had to be withdrawn because of a copyright violation.
With content removal of a problem passage would not need to jeopardize
the project to any significant extent. Published snapshots of the
project can be in fairly short print runs that are consistent with short
term demands for the product. If a copyright problem arises with some
article it can be deleted in time for the next run.
I'm certainly aware of the ambiguities in the word "free". They overlap
to a great extent. That being said, I'm less concerned about the "free
beer" or "free ride" sense. Freedom of speech, and free access to
information are a lot more interesting than just getting something for
nothing.
Ec