Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Yann Forget]

Hi,

Any CC license on Wikidata would be like puting a copyright on facts.
I obviously strongly object on that, and therefore I also strongly object
puting anything other than public domain or CC0 on Wikidata.

The whole database could have
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[John Erling Blad]

Just to make it clear; the discussions at the dev-project was in April-May
2012, linking of wd-items on site late in 29 October 2012 (actually 29.
October), Danny told us about his new Google job in January 2013.

I believe someone must have gotten this backwards.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[John Erling Blad]

You can copyright an expression about facts, but you can't copyright the
facts. In some jurisdictions a collection of facts can be given a special
protection, but still the individual facts are not protected.

>>A single property licensing scheme would allow storage of data,
>>it might or might not allow reuse of the licensed data together with
>>other data. Remember that all entries in the servers might be part
>of an mashup with all other entries.

>That's a very interesting point. Does anyone know a clear extensive report
of what is legal or not regarding massive import of data >extracted from
some source?

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Xavier Combelle  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Did not read your whole argument, but as a collection of brute facts, it
> is hard to see how the content of wikidata could
> be in something else than public domain.
>
> As a whole, the database could present a Sui generis database right
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right) , but
> individual contributors
> would not have rights in this scheme as they have in wikipedia use case.
>
> Xavier Combelle
>
>
> Le 29/11/2017 à 22:45, Mathieu Stumpf Guntz a écrit :
> > Saluton ĉiuj,
> >
> > I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta Tremendous
> > Wiktionary User Group talk page
> >  Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_Group#An_answer_to_Lydia_
> general_thinking_about_Wikidata_and_CC-0>,
> > because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community on this
> > point. Whether you think that my view is completely misguided or that I
> > might have a few relevant points, I'm extremely interested to know it,
> > so please be bold.
> >
> > Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind that I
> > stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I wish it a
> > bright future full of even more amazing things than what it already
> > brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.
> >
> > Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:
> >
> > Thank you Lydia Pintscher
> >  for
> > taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer
> > 
> > miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have been
> raised.
> >
> > Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
> > decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as this
> > inquiry on the topic
> >  CC-0_de_Wikidata,_origine_du_choix,_enjeux,_et_
> prospections_sur_les_aspects_de_gouvernance_communautaire_
> et_d%E2%80%99%C3%A9quit%C3%A9_contributive>
> > advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata choice
> > toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who – to make it
> > short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph team. Also it worth
> > noting that Google funded a quarter of the initial development work.
> > Another quarter came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
> > established by Intel co-founder. And half the money came from Microsoft
> > co-founder Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]
> >  Tremendous_Wiktionary_User_Group#cite_note-1>.
> > To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the puppet
> > trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm of
> > Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version, please see the
> > research project (work in progress, only chapter 1 is in good enough
> > shape, and it's only available in French so far). Some proofs that this
> > claim is completely wrong are welcome, as it would be great that in fact
> > that was the community that was the driving force behind this single
> > license choice and that it is the best choice for its future, not the
> > future of giant tech companies. This would be a great contribution to
> > bring such a happy light on this subject, so we can all let this issue
> > alone and go back contributing in more interesting topics.
> >
> > Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.
> >
> > Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
> > So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal.
> > This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.
> > Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
> > direction: Service and //*Equity*/
> >  movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement#Our_strategic_
> direction:_Service_and_Equity>.
> > Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible. That
> > is, starting where it confirms each others freedom. Because under
> > this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery of others.
> > CC-0 is one step 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Xavier Combelle]

Hi,

Did not read your whole argument, but as a collection of brute facts, it
is hard to see how the content of wikidata could
be in something else than public domain.

As a whole, the database could present a Sui generis database right
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right) , but
individual contributors
would not have rights in this scheme as they have in wikipedia use case.

Xavier Combelle


Le 29/11/2017 à 22:45, Mathieu Stumpf Guntz a écrit :
> Saluton ĉiuj,
>
> I forward here the message I initially posted on the Meta Tremendous
> Wiktionary User Group talk page
> ,
> because I'm interested to have a wider feedback of the community on this
> point. Whether you think that my view is completely misguided or that I
> might have a few relevant points, I'm extremely interested to know it,
> so please be bold.
>
> Before you consider digging further in this reading, keep in mind that I
> stay convinced that Wikidata is a wonderful project and I wish it a
> bright future full of even more amazing things than what it already
> brung so far. My sole concern is really a license issue.
>
> Bellow is a copy/paste of the above linked message:
>
> Thank you Lydia Pintscher
>  for
> taking the time to answer. Unfortunately this answer
> 
> miss too many important points to solve all concerns which have been raised.
>
> Notably, there is still no beginning of hint in it about where the
> decision of using CC0 exclusively for Wikidata came from. But as this
> inquiry on the topic
> 
> advance, an answer is emerging from it. It seems that Wikidata choice
> toward CC0 was heavily influenced by Denny Vrandečić, who – to make it
> short – is now working in the Google Knowledge Graph team. Also it worth
> noting that Google funded a quarter of the initial development work.
> Another quarter came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
> established by Intel co-founder. And half the money came from Microsoft
> co-founder Paul Allen's Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)[1]
> .
> To state it shortly in a conspirational fashion, Wikidata is the puppet
> trojan horse of big tech hegemonic companies into the realm of
> Wikimedia. For a less tragic, more argumentative version, please see the
> research project (work in progress, only chapter 1 is in good enough
> shape, and it's only available in French so far). Some proofs that this
> claim is completely wrong are welcome, as it would be great that in fact
> that was the community that was the driving force behind this single
> license choice and that it is the best choice for its future, not the
> future of giant tech companies. This would be a great contribution to
> bring such a happy light on this subject, so we can all let this issue
> alone and go back contributing in more interesting topics.
>
> Now let's examine the thoughts proposed by Lydia.
>
> Wikidata is here to give more people more access to more knowledge.
> So far, it makes it matches Wikimedia movement stated goal. 
> This means we want our data to be used as widely as possible.
> Sure, as long as it rhymes with equity. As in /Our strategic
> direction: Service and //*Equity*/
> 
> .
> Just like we want freedom for everybody as widely as possible. That
> is, starting where it confirms each others freedom. Because under
> this level, freedom of one is murder and slavery of others. 
> CC-0 is one step towards that.
> That's a thesis, you can propose to defend it but no one have to
> agree without some convincing proof. 
> Data is different from many other things we produce in Wikimedia in that
> it is aggregated, combined, mashed-up, filtered, and so on much more
> extensively.
> No it's not. From a data processing point of view, everything is
> data. Whether it's stored in a wikisyntax, in a relational database
> or engraved in stone only have a commodity side effect. Whether it's
> a random stream of bit generated by a dumb chipset or some encoded
> prose of Shakespeare make no difference. So from this point of view,
> no, what Wikidata store is not different from what is produced
> anywhere else in Wikimedia projects. 
> Sure, the way it's structured does extremely ease many things. But
> this is not because it's 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Lydia Pintscher]

Hi Mathieu,

I understand you care a lot about this topic and are posting about it
in many places but I have a personal rule that a lot of the people in
Wikidata know. I am willing to discuss and explain basically anything
on a calm and rational basis. (And I did this on-wiki I believe.) The
rule is simple: The more loud, aggressive and pushy someone gets about
a topic the less likely I am to engage. This rule has a simple reason:
I don't want Wikidata to get into a spiral of shouting. If we do this
people get into the mode where only if they shout they get heard so
they shout all the time. This is toxic for a community.
So I fear I can't contribute to this thread beyond this message.


Cheers
Lydia

-- 
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Product Manager for Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An answer to Lydia Pintscher regarding its considerations on Wikidata and CC-0

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2017-11-29 23:45 GMT+02:00 Mathieu Stumpf Guntz <
psychosl...@culture-libre.org>:
> Now, what would be the additional cost of storing sources in
> Wikidata? Well, zero cost. Actually, it's already here as the
> "reference" attribute is part of the Wikibase item structure. So
> attribution is not a problem, you don't have to put it in front of
> your derived work, just look at a Wikipedia article: until you go to
> history, you have zero attribution visible, and it's ok.

It's not the central point of this discussion, but I have to chime in here
a bit: It's OK for me, and I guess that it's OK for you given that you're
writing this, and I guess that it's OK for a lot of current Wikipedia
editors because otherwise they probably wouldn't be editing. But it's not
necessary OK for people who could be writing on Wikipedia and aren't
writing.

I specifically heard from several people who live in different countries
and speak different languages that the absence of easily visilbe
attribution is one reason why they don't want to contribute. Should this be
changed?—that's a big and completely separate question. I just wanted to
point out that it's not something that should be easily dismissed with
"it's OK". It's not OK for everybody.

I will also note, like some other people in this thread, that it's far
better to discuss ideas than discuss people. In particular, there are no
reasons to assume any bad intentions on Denny's part; Denny's involvement
with Wikimedia began long before his move to Google, and his current Google
affiliation is not a problem either.

Other than that, I kind of agree with Mathieu's general point: CC-0 may be
good for some things, but it's legitimate to question whether it should be
forced as the ONLY license for all of Wikidata. The whole point of licenses
is that they are enforceable and don't rely on the good will of any person,
organization, or company. It's comparable to the current discussion about
net neutrality in the U.S. (it is about U.S. law, but it's an issue that
will likely affect the rest of the web): U.S. telecom companies commit to
not use the lack of net neutrality to censor or throttle content, but
sometimes it's better to have an enforceable law than a commitment that can
be broken.

CC-0 can be abused by other entities to hurt Wikimedia's goals—by omitting
credit, by re-licensing to something restrictive and non-free, by copying
to a more accessible medium (e.g. Google search results page) and
censoring, etc. Copyleft can help prevent abuse, and it shouldn't actually
make information considerably less accessible to anybody.

(And the very necessary disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am a bit of a
Free Software and Copyleft fanboy.)
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