[Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

Sat May 29 12:42:00 UTC 2004

Anthere-
> We are setting the foundation status. The current
> status are indicating that ALL OF OUR CONTENTS
> (wikimedia projects) will be distributed under the
> gfdl license.

> Should we do that or not ?

No, please do not. We should have the option to decide for any new  
Wikimedia project whether to use the FDL or another license.

Take the Wikinews project as an example. If successful, Wikinews will not  
only compete with CNN but also with AP and Reuters. That means that  
newspapers, magazines and websites may be interested in using our content  
instead of the expensive AP feed. But the FDL with its long license text  
and complicated terms is not very practical for that. There is even the  
question if we really want to force Wikinews users to copyleft their  
content, or if the public domain or an attribution license wouldn't be  
more practical in this instance.

I think we should keep our options open, for new and existing projects. So  
I would instead prefer a phrase like

"All text on Wikimedia projects will be under a license which allows free  
distribution and modification by anyone. The image copyright policies are  
set by individual projects."

Regards,

Erik