Should we follow their lead on this?  Our wiki still have relatively
little content, so it wouldn't be that hard to relicense.  We may want
to mirror/copy their wiki in the future.  CC-BY-SA is a free license,
though not recommended by FSF for documentation.

Matthew Flaschen

--- Begin Message ---
Dear Contributor to the Ubuntu Wiki,

You may recall we emailed all contributors to the Ubuntu wiki some time ago 
asking for views on a potential change of the Wiki copyright policy.

This email is sent to you to inform you of the outcome of that consultation 
process and the resulting change to the licensing policy on the documentation 
wiki.

NOTE: this change applies to the documentation wiki only, at 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community, and not to the Ubuntu development wiki at 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com. In the future we will be considering the scope for a 
similar change to be made to the Ubuntu development wiki.

= Decision =

After discussion among the Ubuntu Community Council and an initial consultation 
period, it has been decided  that new material on the documentation wiki should 
be licensed under a free license, CC-by-SA[1]. The documentation wiki will be 
changed to make this clear to those creating or editing pages, and of course 
external links from the Wiki to documentation under other licences will 
continue to be welcome.

This decision is not intended in any way to underestimate the value of 
contributions, but rather to ensure that the material on the documentation wiki 
complies with the same standards of openness as the Ubuntu project as a whole.

[1] See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/

= Rationale =

The documentation wiki is a collaborative resource, and the product of the 
Ubuntu community as a whole. Its content, put together by many contributors 
with different knowledge and points of view, is immensely valuable to us all. 
Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no clear definition of what rights 
contributors to the documentation retain over the material that they post, or 
the extent to which other persons are entitled to copy or modify the material. 
For example, it would be very useful to ensure that community contributed 
documentation may be copied into documentation in the Ubuntu distribution 
without complex licensing issues, ensuring that those working on documentation 
can concentrate on producing the best documentation possible rather than legal 
negotiations.

= Feedback =

We would again like to make a good-faith attempt to ensure that contributors of 
existing material are happy with this change. We invite any contributors who 
have any questions or concerns about this plan to contact us at <[EMAIL 
PROTECTED]>. Given the consultation that has already taken place in relation to 
this change, we hope that the vast majority of contributors will welcome it.

In the absence of substantial numbers of objections, this change will be made 
to the documentation wiki after approximately one month.

More details can be found here:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WikiLicensing

Many thanks for your contributions to the Ubuntu documentation, and we hope 
that you will continue to help!



--- End Message ---
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