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Envirowiki:Content License Change Proposal

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This is a proposal by Naught101 for a content license change from Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) to GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

These licenses are legally binding licenses allowing anyone to re-use the content (for example, by editing it on envirowiki, or by using it on their website, or in the real world), but requiring that they share the edited content on a similar basis, and aknowledge the previous author(s).

The major difference between the licenses is that CC-BY-NC-SA doesn't allow usage of content for primarily commercial purposes, although it does allow for usage in material being sold to recuperate costs.

Contents

[edit] 1 Reasons for

  • Major: Changing to the GFDL will allow two-way content sharing between sites like Wikipedia, Anarchopedia, Appropedia, GreenLivingpedia, SourceWatch. This currently isn't legal due to license constraints.
  • Content could be used for commercial purposes, potentially spreading the message (it would still need to be aknowledged, so people could still find envirowiki).
  • Significant: Would allow for a massive increase in basic information that's already on other sites without massively increasing work load. Would remove work duplication. This might make envirowiki more welcoming, by removing a lot of red links.

[edit] 2 Reasons against

  • Allowing content to be added from major sites like Wikipedia might change the tone of envirowiki, inconsistent with envirowiki's aims. This could be avoided by a policy of not allowing whole pages to be imported from other sites.
  • Envrowiki could not share content with other CC-BY-NC-SA sites. There are no such sites that I know of.
  • Not allowing importing content from other sites means envirowiki content is unique (with some duplication of facts). Changing the license would allow mass importation from big sites like wikipedia, potentially decreasing the diversity of information on the 'web, and making envirowiki more culturally mainstream (agruable whether this is good or bad)
  • Removing the Non-commercial stipulation might open up envirowiki to commercial exploitation. (See my reasons for using an NC license)
  • Legally, all content would have to be re-licensed, and each editor would have to be happy to re-license their edits. However, a lot of users are unaware of the license of the site any way, and it might be possible to change the license and then simply remove edits by users if they notify later. All users who have signed up with an emailed address can be notified before the change.

[edit] 3 Discussion

If you wish to discuss the proposal, edit the discussion page at Envirowiki talk:Content License Change Proposal, and add your comment, and end it with a signature (if you leave --~~~~ at the end of your comment, it will automatically be replaced with your signature).

Feel free to add reasons to the above sections --Naught101 10:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

all discussion has been moved to Envirowiki talk:Content License Change Proposal

[edit] 4 Users re-licensing

Not all contributions on envirowiki are easily trackable (for instance IP addresses). However, trackable users with a large number of edits have been asked to notify of their willingness to re-license their edits. Users who are relisensing include:

[edit] 5 Decision

There has been no dissent so far in the discussion. If there is no dissent before 2008 October 09 (thursday), the site license will be changed.

[edit] 5.1 Proposal Passed

Proposal passed, site license changed.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.envirowiki.info/Envirowiki:Content_License_Change_Proposal"
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