Wikipedia's entire content and submissions are licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License (FDL). This license is considered problematic
by some people in the free software community because it allows
either the author or future editors to put invariable sections into a
document. Do you share these concerns? Could somebody, theoretically,
fork off a version of Wikipedia "enhanced" with invariable, i.e.
proprietary, content?
I understand that there were not any good alternatives to the GNU FDL when
Wikipedia was started. But would you rather pick a Creative Commons
license for the project today?
There are many "some rights reserved" Creative Commons licenses. Some of them do not distinguish between commercial and other reuse. The one closest in spirit to the GNU FDL appears to be Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 [creativecommons.org].
Simply put - No, the CCL prohibits commerical re-use, which is
something that we do not want to prohibit.
No, it's not correct the way you phrase it. Creative Commons doesn't
provide one, but multiple Licensing options. Depending on which exact
Creative Commons license you choose, you can either allow or prohibit
commercial reuse.
The "Choose License"
page [creativecommons.org] defaults to "Allow commercial uses of your work", btw.
How ideal is Wikipedia's license? (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand that there were not any good alternatives to the GNU FDL when Wikipedia was started. But would you rather pick a Creative Commons license for the project today?
Re:How ideal is Wikipedia's license? (Score:2)
Then why not CC by-sa? (Score:1)
There are many "some rights reserved" Creative Commons licenses. Some of them do not distinguish between commercial and other reuse. The one closest in spirit to the GNU FDL appears to be Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 [creativecommons.org].
Re:How ideal is Wikipedia's license? (Score:2)
No, it's not correct the way you phrase it. Creative Commons doesn't provide one, but multiple Licensing options. Depending on which exact Creative Commons license you choose, you can either allow or prohibit commercial reuse.
The "Choose License" page [creativecommons.org] defaults to "Allow commercial uses of your work", btw.
-F
Re:How ideal is Wikipedia's license? (Score:1)