[WikiEN-l] Re: Homework and research direct requests

Sun Feb 1 10:13:52 UTC 2004

Alex R. wrote:

>Wikipedia will remain free, even if Wikimedia is dissolved or
>becomes insolvent. Why?  Because all the work distributed on
>all the Wikipedias and related projects are released under the 
>GFDL a license that allows liberal copying.
>
>Anyone can create a "fork" of Wikipedia, or a mirror site
>(under their own name as Wikipedia is a trademark).
>
That's very fine in theory.  The GFDL is only as powerful as the efforts 
to defend it.  Several of our people are watchful of license violations, 
and are diligent about contacting the violators to settle such problems. 
 There have been many of these violation, but most are resolved amicably.  

In the event of an insolvency, the new Forkopedia could freely put its 
download of Wikipedia on the net with all the GFDL references stripped 
out, but with its own copyright claim appended on every page.  The 
violation of copyright would be clear, but who would there be to 
challenge them?

In an insolvency the trademark could lapse.  The odd thing could be that 
because WP has become so well known the trademark would be a valuable 
commodity.  Selling it in those circumstances could very well cure the 
insolvency problem, but one should not speculate too far about such a 
pyrrhic victory. :-\

Ec