We have an archive mixing different licenses now, one is Commons ranging from
CC-0 to CC BY SA, and other ones are local Wikis sometimes including in their
spectrum of situations many non-free files in fair use. this is proof that an
archive hosting non-free files with other free-licensed information has nothing
special per se. A new archive might simply be more clear and linear than those,
since it would be designed specifically to handle the matter.
I work in outreach the whole time, you can give me all the money you want to
improve my productivity, but I would still use it more efficiently if I could
have a more integrated infrastructure specifically for this issue.
A.
Il venerdì 7 agosto 2020, 08:52:31 CEST, Erik Moeller <eloque...@gmail.com>
ha scritto:
On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 3:52 PM Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think we should mix NC with free-knowledge licenses .
> I do absolutely think we should maintain an archive, visible to the public
> with at most a simple hoop to jump through, of material that is offered to
> us in any legal way but not yet free.
Such an archive would _unavoidably_ "mix NC with free-knowledge
licenses" -- because all collaborative and transformative work
happening in the archive itself would be released under free knowledge
licenses. Worse, any meaningful transformations of the archived works
would result in derivative works that remain nonfree, directly
enlisting volunteers in the creation of nonfree knowledge.
In any event, why create an archive for works under borderline terms,
while ignoring more restricted works that could be plausibly released
under a free license tomorrow? Works that are nonfree for simple
economic reasons (e.g., some old but useful textbook) may often be
easier to "set free" than those which are nonfree for reasons of
longstanding policy (e.g, the WHO example). Why amass the latter and
ignore the former? I don't see how this would strengthen Wikimedia's
free knowledge commitment, but I can easily see how it could weaken it
considerably and very quickly, whether or not that's the intent.
To be clear, I think creating free summaries and descriptions of
nonfree works (from traditional textbooks and scientific papers to
Khan Academy videos) is very much in line with the Wikimedia mission.
I don't think it requires hosting the works. To the extent that there
is concern about losing access to works that are currently available
via public URLs, the use of Internet Archive enabled citation URLs
provides a great example for how to avoid such link rot.
I'm sure there are also plenty of tech and non-tech ways Wikimedia
could support volunteers and chapters that work on outreach to set
more educational works free, none of which require the creation of a
nonfree archive.
Warmly,
Erik
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