Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Gerard Meijssen
Hoi,
Uploading material that is incompatible with our license, I would personally
consider it a bad faith move. Only when it is considered that the inclusion
of a GFDL file is similar to fair use within the context of a Wikipedia
clone would it be acceptable. This however possibly negates the reason for
uploading under the GFDL of the uploader.

Commons was originally conceived as a shared repository for all WMF
projects. When the WMF projects are not allowed to use material from
Commons, it is definetly not the place to upload new incompatible material.
Thanks,
  GerardM

2009/8/4 Nemo_bis nemow...@gmail.com

 mizusumashi, 25/07/2009 16:54:
  Q1) All media files that have been licensed under the GFDL and allowed
  to relicense under CC-BY-SA were relicensed by
  [[wmf:Resolution:Licensing update approval]]?

 Yes, all GFDL 1.2 and later. See
 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GFDL_1.3_relicensing_criteria

  Q2) Now, I know, we can't import text licensed under not CC-BY-SA but
  only GFDL.  How about media files?  Can I upload a media file licensed
  under not CC-BY-SA but only GFDL?

 It depends on communities. The only WMF policy is still
 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

 Nemo

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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Huib!
Hello,

Wikimedia prefers material under a CC license but it will stay possible to
upload gfdl only material.

But whenever its possible try to upload it under a cc-by license or a dual
license.

Best regards,
Huib
-- 

Http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:Abigor



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Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics

2009-08-04 Thread Nemo_bis
Felipe Ortega, 25/07/2009 18:06:
 * The main proportion of Featured Articles in all top-ten language versions 
 needed, at least, more than 1,000 days (3 years) to reach that level.

But I often see that even an old, quiescent page is completely 
re-written or significantly improved by an expert (of the matter and 
often of wiki too) user (often FA regulars) to reach Featured article 
status, and it reaches it in some weeks at most.

 * Most of editors contributing to FAs were high experienced editors, meaning 
 more than 2.5 or 3 years participating in Wikipedia. 

I read your thesis entirely, and I have a big concern: you consider only 
number of edits. An admin can edit dozen of thousands of articles 
reverting vandalisms, and histories are full of huge vandalism-revert 
series which are history-noise because that's not where the article was 
improved or acually evolved.
You can often see articles created (or significantly expanded) with a 
single edit followed by dozens or even hunderds of minor edits and 
vandalism-reverts.
Then, we should rather consider, as authors of articles, users who added 
it more text; or better, users who added more of the text which is still 
there (like in wikitrust).
Moreover, FA are only a minority of articles and do not measure the 
quality of the wiki.

Nemo

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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Marco Chiesa
On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Gerard
Meijssengerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote:

 The fact that all of our material can not be made available under the
 CC-by-sa license because  of some people insisting on using the wrong
 license is beyond me. The fact that we insist that the two licenses are
 compatible does not make them compatible. The fact that it is unlikely that
 WE get into problems, does not justify the continued practice of accepting
 GFDL only material when our reusers might.
 Thanks,
      GerardM

Commons accepts materials that are free according to
http://freedomdefined.org/Definition GFDL works fall within that
definition, so they're free. We have lived eight years with GFDL and
we've called Wikipedia the free encyclopedia all the time, so we
cannot just dismiss GFDL now only because we've found a license that
works better for us. The interincompatibility is probably the worst
feature of copyleft, but we've lived long time with that and there's
no reason to stop doing it.

Cruccone

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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Gerard Meijssen
Hoi,
Please note that I only call for no more new uploads of GFDL material. Also
my main argument is ignored; the ability and surety that such documents can
be legally used by our downstream users of our content.
Thanks,
  GerardM

2009/8/4 Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com

 On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Gerard
 Meijssengerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote:

  The fact that all of our material can not be made available under the
  CC-by-sa license because  of some people insisting on using the wrong
  license is beyond me. The fact that we insist that the two licenses are
  compatible does not make them compatible. The fact that it is unlikely
 that
  WE get into problems, does not justify the continued practice of
 accepting
  GFDL only material when our reusers might.
  Thanks,
   GerardM

 Commons accepts materials that are free according to
 http://freedomdefined.org/Definition GFDL works fall within that
 definition, so they're free. We have lived eight years with GFDL and
 we've called Wikipedia the free encyclopedia all the time, so we
 cannot just dismiss GFDL now only because we've found a license that
 works better for us. The interincompatibility is probably the worst
 feature of copyleft, but we've lived long time with that and there's
 no reason to stop doing it.

 Cruccone

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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Michael Snow
Marco Chiesa wrote:
 Commons accepts materials that are free according to
 http://freedomdefined.org/Definition GFDL works fall within that
 definition, so they're free. We have lived eight years with GFDL and
 we've called Wikipedia the free encyclopedia all the time, so we
 cannot just dismiss GFDL now only because we've found a license that
 works better for us. The interincompatibility is probably the worst
 feature of copyleft, but we've lived long time with that and there's
 no reason to stop doing it.
   
In terms of our policy, I agree with this. That being said, for anyone 
deciding what license to choose when contributing to Wikimedia Commons - 
I cannot fathom why you would limit media to being released only under 
the GFDL unless it was designed specifically for incorporation into a 
GFDL work. It's a documentation license, not a media license, and when 
applied to radically different contexts it will still be free in the 
dogmatic sense, but it may no longer be all that useful.

--Michael Snow

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Re: [Foundation-l] List moderation (was, Re: Stevertigo)

2009-08-04 Thread Cary Bass
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Tim Starling wrote:
 I wrote:
 I'm taking Stevertigo off moderation. He has agreed by private
 email not to continue the dispute resolution mailing list thread.


 I also asked him to not make me immediately regret my decision, and
 to let this thing with Austin drop. I repeated this request in a
 second private email when he started posting in this thread, and he
 has ignored it.

 Cary has contacted me expressing an interest in adjudicating this
 case, and he is the relevant authority on this kind of thing. Thus
 I have put Stevertigo back on moderation pending his decision.

 -- Tim Starling
I'm allowing Austin, as active list moderator, to work this out with
Stevertigo, who can contact Austin directly or work things out with me.

That being said, since Micheal Bimmler's retirement, and the fact that
I'm not certain of Ral315's list moderation activity level; I leave
the question with Austin, do you want someone to volunteer to help out
with moderation?

- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Re: [Foundation-l] List moderation (was, Re: Stevertigo)

2009-08-04 Thread Cary Bass
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Cary Bass wrote:
 Tim Starling wrote:
 I wrote:
 I'm taking Stevertigo off moderation. He has agreed by private
 email not to continue the dispute resolution mailing list
 thread.

 I also asked him to not make me immediately regret my decision,
 and to let this thing with Austin drop. I repeated this request
 in a second private email when he started posting in this thread,
 and he has ignored it.

 Cary has contacted me expressing an interest in adjudicating this
 case, and he is the relevant authority on this kind of thing.
 Thus I have put Stevertigo back on moderation pending his
 decision.

 -- Tim Starling
 I'm allowing Austin, as active list moderator, to work this out
 with Stevertigo, who can contact Austin directly or work things out
 with me.
I want to rephrase my unfortunate choice of words for clarification.
I'm allowing... means, I'm not going to step in and decide for the
moderator who is perfectly capable of making these decisions on his
own. Anyone who is on moderation is perfectly welcome to contact me,
however, I'll only serve as an intermediary between him/her and the
list moderator. Ultimately, the public (and most of the private)
lists are run by volunteers, who don't need my help or advice to run them.

- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Michael Snowwikipe...@verizon.net wrote:
[snip]
 I cannot fathom why you would limit media to being released only under
 the GFDL unless it was designed specifically for incorporation into a
 GFDL work. It's a documentation license, not a media license, and when
 applied to radically different contexts it will still be free in the
 dogmatic sense, but it may no longer be all that useful.

Because, unfortunately, representatives of Creative Commons have
asserted that CC-By-Sa licensed media can integrated as a whole
integrated into non-free works, producing a result which is not freely
licensed. In other words— that the cc-by-sa copyleft is nearly moot in
the context of images since they tend to be either incorporated
verbatim or subject to only trivial non-copyright deserving
modifications even when the the resulting work as a whole clearly
builds upon the illustration and isn't merely a collection of separate
things.

The license text itself appears to be reasonably explicit on this
matter—  but I feel it would be unethical to use CC-By-SA when doing
so would cause me to end up litigating against people who were merely
following, in good faith, what they believe to be authoritative
advice.


GFDL licensed images are still perfectly usable in freely licensed
reference works, in spite of the  inconveniences in the license.  It's
unfortunate that there doesn't currently exist an unclouded copyleft
license which is well suited for photographs.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Michael Snow
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Michael Snowwikipe...@verizon.net wrote:
 [snip]
   
 I cannot fathom why you would limit media to being released only under
 the GFDL unless it was designed specifically for incorporation into a
 GFDL work. It's a documentation license, not a media license, and when
 applied to radically different contexts it will still be free in the
 dogmatic sense, but it may no longer be all that useful.
 
 Because, unfortunately, representatives of Creative Commons have
 asserted that CC-By-Sa licensed media can integrated as a whole
 integrated into non-free works, producing a result which is not freely
 licensed. In other words— that the cc-by-sa copyleft is nearly moot in
 the context of images since they tend to be either incorporated
 verbatim or subject to only trivial non-copyright deserving
 modifications even when the the resulting work as a whole clearly
 builds upon the illustration and isn't merely a collection of separate
 things.

 The license text itself appears to be reasonably explicit on this
 matter—  but I feel it would be unethical to use CC-By-SA when doing
 so would cause me to end up litigating against people who were merely
 following, in good faith, what they believe to be authoritative
 advice.
I don't think I'd be so quick to blame Creative Commons for this, 
regardless of the advice they've given. It seems like most people 
reusing copyleft materials in good faith do so without fully 
understanding the concept, advice or no advice. I've seen plenty of GFDL 
material combined with other works in this way as well, even when as you 
say, the whole clearly builds upon the original rather than being a 
collection of works that can stand independently. It's a bad practice 
and a major educational challenge for free licenses, but I don't find it 
that closely related to the issue of choosing a free license in the 
first place.

--Michael Snow


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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Michael Snow wrote:
 Marco Chiesa wrote:
   
 Commons accepts materials that are free according to
 http://freedomdefined.org/Definition GFDL works fall within that
 definition, so they're free. We have lived eight years with GFDL and
 we've called Wikipedia the free encyclopedia all the time, so we
 cannot just dismiss GFDL now only because we've found a license that
 works better for us. The interincompatibility is probably the worst
 feature of copyleft, but we've lived long time with that and there's
 no reason to stop doing it.
   
 
 In terms of our policy, I agree with this. That being said, for anyone 
 deciding what license to choose when contributing to Wikimedia Commons - 
 I cannot fathom why you would limit media to being released only under 
 the GFDL unless it was designed specifically for incorporation into a 
 GFDL work. It's a documentation license, not a media license, and when 
 applied to radically different contexts it will still be free in the 
 dogmatic sense, but it may no longer be all that useful.

   

While I completely agree with you, the situation is somewhat
different if you are downloading a work that has been previously
published under GFDL. Then the decision is not whether to
choose the GFDL license, but the decision is whether to download.

I suggest the decision should be to download.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

2009-08-04 Thread Michael Snow
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
 Michael Snow wrote:
   
 Marco Chiesa wrote:  
 
 Commons accepts materials that are free according to
 http://freedomdefined.org/Definition GFDL works fall within that
 definition, so they're free. We have lived eight years with GFDL and
 we've called Wikipedia the free encyclopedia all the time, so we
 cannot just dismiss GFDL now only because we've found a license that
 works better for us. The interincompatibility is probably the worst
 feature of copyleft, but we've lived long time with that and there's
 no reason to stop doing it.
   
 In terms of our policy, I agree with this. That being said, for anyone 
 deciding what license to choose when contributing to Wikimedia Commons - 
 I cannot fathom why you would limit media to being released only under 
 the GFDL unless it was designed specifically for incorporation into a 
 GFDL work. It's a documentation license, not a media license, and when 
 applied to radically different contexts it will still be free in the 
 dogmatic sense, but it may no longer be all that useful.
 
 While I completely agree with you, the situation is somewhat
 different if you are downloading a work that has been previously
 published under GFDL. Then the decision is not whether to
 choose the GFDL license, but the decision is whether to download.

 I suggest the decision should be to download.
   
Right, that's why I focused my comments on people who are in a position 
to choose the license.

--Michael Snow

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