[Foundation-l] Copies of Wikipedia's articles found on Knol

Thu Jul 31 03:14:56 UTC 2008

David Gerard writes:

> We can and should (and, AFAIK, do) heartily support the CC-BY default
> license. Because that's free content, and supporting that wherever it
> springs up and making proper free content licenses the *expected
> default* for reference works is 100% in line with WMF's mission.
> Without us having to do the actual work!

I think it's proper to say we don't oppose CC-BY, but that it's  
inconsistent with the licensing schemes we've embraced (GFDL and CC-BY- 
SA), because it's non-viral -- it doesn't require that derivative  
content be issued under the same free license under which it was  
distributed.

I can't see how content distributed under the licenses Knol offers can  
be reproduced in WMF projects, and I can't see how content produced  
under WMF's licensing options can be reproduced in Knol.  To me, that  
raises a serious problem.

--Mike