[Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms

Tue Nov 22 23:55:28 UTC 2005

As has become apparent recently there is considerable confusion
possible when reading the text of the Wikisource copyright page at
[[Wikisource: Copyright]]. It is not clear whether only GFDL works,
GFDL-compatible works and public domain works can be posted at the
site, or whether any licence that allows relatively free reproduction
can be used. We need this situation cleared up. I am therefore
proposing to re-write the offending bits of the Wikisource copyright
page to remove the ambiguity.

Since this is a serious step for the project I thought it sensible to
post here and see what the level of agreement is with what I am
proposing to do. I will also post an equivalent message to the
Scriptorium.

What I am proposing to do is to re-word the licensing page to make it
clear that the documents themselves are licensed separately from the
content of the site. That means that things on talk pages, the
Scriptorium, Community Portal and similar will be under the GFDL as
per Wikipedia. However, the documents themselves will be licensed
according to conditions appropriate to their source. That means that
works that are public domain in the United States should be noted as
such with a template at the top or bottom of the page, whichever is
felt most appropriate. It means that works that carry different
licensing conditions from the GFDL and that have licences that are
incompatible with the GFDL can be noted as such.

Such a step will open up Wikisource to a large number of possibilities
of hosting that are currently not open and it will also clear up a
considerable amount of confusion. What do you think?

David Newton