Mailing List Archive

Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050109 18:20]:

> I may have missed something entirely...
> Onymous just mentionned on #wikimedia that wikinews was now in public
> domain.
> Is that so ?
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page


I believe the idea is that while it's being trialled, public domain is the
least restrictive possible open content license [*], so it can be made more
restrictive later if needed - but it would be difficult retrospectively
making it *less* restrictive.


- d.

[*] insofar as PD can be called a 'license', etc., etc.

David Gerard wrote:
> Anthere (anthere9@yahoo.com) [050109 18:20]:
>
>> I may have missed something entirely...
>> Onymous just mentionned on #wikimedia that wikinews was now in public
>> domain.
>> Is that so ?
>> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

> I believe the idea is that while it's being trialled, public domain is the
> least restrictive possible open content license [*], so it can be made more
> restrictive later if needed - but it would be difficult retrospectively
> making it *less* restrictive.

There is a poll on meta about which license to use:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll

IMO we should end it soon and decide on a license.

greetings,
elian

> I may have missed something entirely...
>
> Onymous just mentionned on #wikimedia that wikinews was now in public
> domain.
>
> Is that so ?
>
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page
>

Hello Anthere,

Wikinews has been in the public domain ever since it was launched as a demo.
Alas, I had forgotten to update MediaWiki:Copyright, so while the edit
submission screen said that all edits are in the public domain, the page
footer still said that the content is under the FDL. After this was pointed
out, I fixed it to be consistent.

We chose the public domain because we do not yet know whether Wikinews will
be licensed under a copyleft license. This depends in part on what our
experiences will be over the coming weeks with other people using our
content. For news, some people argue that the requirements of the GFDL in
particular (such as the requirement to reproduce the entire license) place
too much of a burden on potential third party users, and that at the very
least, a simplified copyleft license such as CC-BY-SA should be supported.

There is a straw poll at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll
where currently a majority favors a dual-licensing approach. This is,
however, not particularly helpful since the poll does not distinguish
between different dual licensing options. We should run an official vote on
the matter soon.

If the Board does not suggest another date, I suggest running the vote on
February 1.

All best,

Erik

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