CZ Talk:License Essays/Stephen Ewen

Full array of Licenses

Overall I thought this essay was excellent

<quote> There is no reason whatsoever to believe that CZ cannot host material under the full array of copyrights and licenses. Doing so would increase both the overall amount and quality of our content, in fact. </quote>

I read that with very great interest, but not sure how it could work out in practice for an open content project. Could you develop that a little perhaps (I think it may be possible to reconcile, but how needs to be made more clear because it's an important point. I only have a hazy idea how it could be done, but think it should be possible) —  Luke Brandt 12:18, 4 November 2007 (CST)

Reply

Here's one idea. It will take some development work, as I've said.

Whenever one begins a new page http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/New_article they are brought to a redesigned MediaWiki:Noarticletext a lot like CZ:Upload-Wizard (which is still under development right now). They click on the appropriate link: "Starting article from Wikipedia material"; Starting article from University Open CourseWare material"; etc. The page they start will have a unique appearance depending upon license, a lot like this example of a PD page, and that appearance is not editable except by sysops (there will be cases where the text of an article will be so transformed the license changes).

So every page will be licensed and have a certain unique appearance. While it is being drafted, a notice like the below will appear atop the page (let's say in this example a CZ article began life at WP):

Important note: This article is licensed under the GNU Public License. All text added, whether your own or from another source, must be licensed the same. All media added must allow both commercial and derivative uses, as far as possible.

After an article is approved, that notice will move to the draft page and will also appear in much smaller text at the bottom of the approved article, if it is still true.

I think you can see the basic pattern.

Stephen Ewen 19:28, 4 November 2007 (CST)

Response

Many thanks for your reply. One thing that still bugs me is how can we characterize CZ as essentially open content (*WP* link) if we are to be neutral as to the licenses people may want to choose for an article they start. From what you say the license chosen will remain with the article, whoever subsequently edits it, unless a sysop thinks it necessary to change the license because the article has been sufficiently transformed by additional edits. Presumably an article creator couldn't choose a license which forbids modification? However, I can see you made a potent argument for a non-commercial default license, and that choice seems to be compatible with, for example, Wikipedia's current definition of open content. So maybe there is no problem. —  Luke Brandt 22:29, 5 November 2007 (CST)

I do not take it nearly that far. I am not suggesting people can start a new mainspace article and license it just however. But let's say they want to use some work from another wiki as a starting point, whether a GFDL WP article or a CC-by-sa article from EoE or a CC-by-nc-sa one from some OpenCourseware. Etc. Then they can and it means we have many more sources from which to begin articles and build from there. CZ original articles will have a default open license (I am arguing for non-commercial, CC-by-nc-sa makes most sense to me). On subapages we could host "signed, perhaps biased" articles under whatever terms the signer stipulates. Clearer now? Stephen Ewen 22:41, 5 November 2007 (CST)

Response(2)

Hi again Stephen, and sorry for my misunderstanding. But like I said, maybe there is no problem if our default license is as you suggested. I think what this would mean is that some articles would be here on a similar basis to those at Scholarpedia, with any edits having to be approved by their authors, if they should choose to write under a license which forbids modification. Agreed, this is contrary to the concept of an openly editable wiki (e.g. see the recent debate in the forums) but perhaps subject workgroups could decide by a vote which article to show in CZ mainspace between competing articles (say one article with a named author and one without) if it's necessary. So what a writer would have, then, is the possibility of choosing any license she wishes....a full array of licenses. But maybe you think this goes too far in the direction of license neutrality, or would be too difficult to implement. Thanks —  Luke Brandt 00:09, 8 November 2007 (CST)

Response(3)

If an article is imported from Wiki X under a CC-by-sa or from Wiki Y under a CC-by-nc-sa or from Wiki W under the GFDL, then that is that article's license, unless it gets so transformed it can be considered original, in which case it goes to the default license. The idea is to allow numerous starting points for articles that are imported, rather than allowing the narrow range of work limited by just one license. CZ original articles are under the default. Signed subpage articles are the only ones where a writer can choose their license, because that is exclusively their own work by definition. Stephen Ewen 00:30, 8 November 2007 (CST)