The trouble with GFDL
GFDL includes a clause that says that attribution must be given in order to copy content. It's true in CC-by, too. GFDL, though, requires that the individual contributors be named. For documentation, which was the original purpose of the GFDL license, that makes sense. For projects with more content and more contributors, the requirement to name individual contributors becomes a burden.
One interpretation of GFDL suggests that the use of a particular Wiktionary entry requires attribution of all its contributors. This approach would paralyze the free re-use of the data in applications such as spell-checkers. Another approach would be to handle the attribution en masse, such as by including a single list of contributors to imported data (perhaps with edit counts) without tracking who contributed what.
The GFDL license also does not consider the attribution of organizations. We do not know, for instance, the names of all the individuals who contributed the GEMET data. WiktionaryZ has partners already, and will have many more as it grows.
In order to proceed smoothly, we propose the use of the CC-by license. At this stage, we welcome discussion. If you agree with this direction, please state your agreement to license your own contributions under CC-by on your user pages on WiktionaryZ and your home Wiktionary.
One interpretation of GFDL suggests that the use of a particular Wiktionary entry requires attribution of all its contributors. This approach would paralyze the free re-use of the data in applications such as spell-checkers. Another approach would be to handle the attribution en masse, such as by including a single list of contributors to imported data (perhaps with edit counts) without tracking who contributed what.
The GFDL license also does not consider the attribution of organizations. We do not know, for instance, the names of all the individuals who contributed the GEMET data. WiktionaryZ has partners already, and will have many more as it grows.
In order to proceed smoothly, we propose the use of the CC-by license. At this stage, we welcome discussion. If you agree with this direction, please state your agreement to license your own contributions under CC-by on your user pages on WiktionaryZ and your home Wiktionary.
posted by Dvortygirl | 8:07 am
4 Comments:
This is of course very true - and: attribution will be there anyway - that means: going to WiktionaryZ you are able to see what people did if you really start to search. Most of us don't care to be mentioned by name if data is going to be re-used in a spellchecker - we act as a community and so it is important that the community is mentioned (ressouce = Wiktionary/WiktionaryZ). We should create a template like {{I like CC-BY}} for the various wiktionaries attributing a category to it. Thank you for taking up this theme :-)
Sabine
Does it still allow us to import the Wiktionaries into there? I have some doubt about it since the modification of wikinews into CC-by prevented it to import stuff from Wikipedia.
Though, I do prefer CC-by to GFDL.
Also, what about changing Wikipedia and Wiktionary (or maybe just Wiktionary?) to CC-by? Is it possible, or just a crazy idea?
The problem with "facts" is that you cannot copyright them. When we take the "facts" out of the Wiktionaries we cannot import them as a collection, the resulting mess would be really bad. So we have to undouble the information and it will be absolutely unclear where these "facts" came from.
We will prominently attribute that we have all this data from all these Wiktionaries, we will post who contributed to the Wiktionaries and that is the best we can and will do irrespective of the license.
It would be best when people assert that their work is available under both licensese (I have done this for my pronunciations on Commons). We can even do a best effort to not use stuff from the nay sayers. But as far as I understand things, it is really only the definitions and the etymology that would be problematic.
As to changing Wikipedia .. Ask them it is not something for me to have a strong opinion on.
Thanks,
GerardM
The GFDL is essentially different in many ways. For what we hope to achieve a more restrictive license hinders and does not help.
As to importing from Wiktionary, there are many ways in which we can import data from the Wiktionary projects. One way is just ask for cooperation. Many Wiktionarians will be happy to accomodate us.
It is also really relevant to understand that Wiktionary is not the only resource that we want to include, WiktionaryZ has however been modelled to include Wiktionary data.
Thanks,
GerardM
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