[Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

Mon May 31 00:44:11 UTC 2004

Andre Engels wrote in part:

>Daniel Mayer (maveric149) wrote:

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

>Then you have a strange meaning of 'free'.

>"You may do with it what you want, provided you mention my name" is
>more free than "You may do with it what you want, provided you mention
>my name and give others the same rights and obligations".

The Free Software Foundation would argue that the final condition
is not a significant restriction on the downstream user's freedoms.
Thus they would say that CC-by and GNU FDL ''are'' free, period.
And certainly the latter condition makes it more certain
that future derived works will in fact be free at all.

I think that it's healthier to take a less absolute stance.
There is (or was, I don't know the latest developments)
a big debate in the Debian project about whether the GNU FDL
is free when it's combined with Invariant Sections.
(For example, the FSF's own GNU emacs manual has an IS.
Certainly the FSF believes that this is free,
but many people in the Debian community disagree.)
What they ''should'' be able to agree on, to get started,
is that the GNU FDL is ''less'' free when used with an IS;
then they can start discussing whether it's free ''enough''.
But since most debaters take an absolutist position
on the criteria for freedom, they can't even get started.

So an unlicensed copyright is less free than GNU FDL with an IS,
and GNU FDL with an IS is less free than GNU FDL without an IS,
and GNU FDL without an IS is (arguably [*]) less free than CC-by-sa,
and CC-by-sa is less free than CC-by, and CC-by is less free than PD.
But on the other hand, there are ''reasons'' for each of the restrictions,
including reasons that restrictions that may increase freedom overall.
So the question for any project (GNU, Debian, Wikimedia, etc)
is not "free or not free" but "how free is free enough"?
GNU and Debian are answering this differently, and that's OK.
Within Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Wikinews may answer this differently too!

[*] This has to do with the "overbroad DRM clause" in the GNU FDL.
It is a subtle point that only the extreme anti-FDL people care about;
but even so, people should be able to agree that it makes a difference
to ''relative'' freedom.

-- Toby