Joel Pitt wrote:
...
Some comments/suggestions:
* I think such a project should make the data public domain. Ignore
silly ideas like giving be "shares" in the knowledge or whatever. It
just complicates things. If the project is really strapped for cash
later, then either use ad revenue or look for research funding
(although I don't see much cost except for initial development of the
system and web hosting).
...
Making this "proprietary" and expecting "shares" to translate into cash
would indeed be a silly approach.
OTOH, having people's names attached to scores of some type (call them
shares, or anything else) lets people feel more attached to the
project. This is probably necessary for success. There also needs to
be some way for the builders to interact, and a few other methods that
assist the formation of a community. Newsboards, games, etc. can all be
useful if structured properly to enhance the formation of a community.
Perhaps only community members with scores above the median could be
allowed to download the database?
It's find to talk about making the data "public domain", but that's not
a good idea. There are arguments in favor of BSD, MIT, GPL, LGPL, etc.
licenses. For this kind of activity I can see either BSD or MIT as
easily defensible. (Personally I'd use LGPL, but then if I were using
it, I'd want the whole application to be GPL. I might not be able to
achieve it, but that's what I'd want.) Public domain wouldn't be one of
the possibilities that I would consider. The Artistic license is about
as close to that as I would want to come...and the MIT license is
probably a better choice for those purposes.
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