[Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

Sat May 29 13:35:00 UTC 2004

"Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> schrieb:
> 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.

Not to mention that technically _no_ Wikipedia project holds the GNU/FDL.
We never should have taken it in the first place, we certainly should not
bind us to it any more than we are by the situation of already having content
under it.

Andre Engels