[Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

Mon May 31 00:23:22 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:

>The FDL doesn't mention *content* as you rightly state -
>that is something that needs to be fixed.

I don't think that this matters very much;
they have a philosophical objection to that term,
but I just spoke of "free documents" instead.

>I'm advocating the full use of the word free (no cost and copyleft).

This is a very bad idea.

The Free Software Foundation has been around for a long time,
they're the ones that principally promote the use of the word "free",
and they're the ones that people look to to define that word.
We should use it, if at all, in their well established sense.

In this sense, "free" does NOT include «no cost» or «copyleft».
The words for that are "no cost" (or "gratis") and "copyleft".

I'm speaking here of how we should use the term "free"
in claiming that we use "free" licences like the GNU FDL.
I do believe that we should /also/ offer our articles gratis,
and I'm willing to accept that our licences may /also/ be copyleft
(like the GNU FDL in fact is).

That said, what should the Foundation policy that worried Anthère say?
Now it says "free" and "like the GNU FDL", which Anthère found confusing.
So we need to clarify what we mean by these phrases.
Do we only mean «free» (in the sense of the FSF),
or do we in fact mean «free and copyleft», as a policy?
(Both of these qualify as "like" the GNU FDL.)
If you're arguing for the latter, then Erik's objection
in the case of Wikinews applies.  If you're arguing for the former,
then the policy text can be edited to clarify things right now.

(«gratis» doesn't enter into the matter with the licences.
But we might want to make no cost a policy all the same,
if we want to say that Wikimedia will never charge for, say,
a distribution on compact discs or cheap newsprint.
Other people will still be able to charge, under the GNU FDL,
or indeed any licence that the FSF would consider free.)

-- Toby