[Foundation-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

Sat Aug 23 14:56:53 UTC 2008

Hello,

> *I officially pronounce that as of June 30, 2004, content which we are
> using _solely_ by virtue of non-free licenses should be removed from
> Wikipedia.*[1]

Well, back in 2005 Frankfurt Wikimania's "free culture manifesto",  
Jimmy supported use of PD-art :)
""I wouldn't encourage you to break the law, but if you accidentally  
take a photo of these works it would be great to put it on Wikipedia  
for the public domain."

Please allow me to state my individual opinion, as otherwise we'd have  
to hold an emergency meeting to provide a board-level answer to these  
questions.

Generally, Foundation allows communities to decide, providing legal  
boundaries, within which it supports the projects, and of course -  
guidance, along the values.

In this case, Foundation has the interpretation of what is PD, and can  
allow more flexible, Florida-centric evaluation of PD.
Narrower PD interpretations are up for community.

> So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike  
> have given
> theirs *opinions*.

Is the need for an official statement your opinion or official  
statement?
Both Mike and Erik are responsible employees of Foundation, and they  
definitely have capacity to discuss with community and provide  
guidelines.

> If Wikimedia Foundation doesn't need to have official
> statements regarding subjects like this, the Wikimedia Foundation  
> doesn't
> need to have a Board of Trustees (since everyone can assert anything)

Or rather, look at it the other way. As Wikimedia Foundation has  
employees doing the job, Board of Trustees can limit the participation  
in actual execution of mission.

> and
> hundreds of volunteers don't need to waste your time translating  
> gazillions
> of pages related to the Board elections expecting that the  
> Foundation never
> given controversial rulings that can broke copyleft things in some  
> contries.

I honor any volunteerism, and everyone's choice to spend whatever  
effort they think is necessary.

You seem to believe that Foundation should have authority to rule the  
community.
Actually, Foundation is supporting the community, and BoT is having  
authority over Foundation.

By electing members to BoT, you chose someone who supports you, not  
rules you.

If you feel that Foundation may not be able to support you, if it  
chose to be more flexible regarding PD interpretations, let us know,  
and we will discuss that in next meeting.
If you feel that Foundation should be actually restricting the  
community, so our values are better preserved, we can probably do that  
too, if that is really needed, though I'd really really like to trust  
community with that.

Personally, I want to be able to spread more information, rather than  
less.
I'd like others to be able to spread more information too. Thats what  
we're doing, right?

In perfect universe we may team up with other organizations and do  
impact litigation and impact education, and teach the world that  
freeing up the content is good.
Well, ok, in perfect universe we wouldn't even have to do that :)

-- 
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]