Wikimanqala:Why wikimanqala doesn't use the GFDL
From Wikimanqala
This page describes one of wikimanQala's policies and guidelines
Many wikiwikis (including wikimanQala's "godparent", Wikipedia) use the GNU Free Documentation License to protect their work. The GFDL is a copyleft license that is designed for the free distribution of software manuals and other similar documents.
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Why the GFDL doesn't work for wikimanQala
The GFDL does fit the wiki format quite well, allowing for free sharing and modification of the work in question and all derivative works. However, there are some problems specific to wikimanqala that make the GFDL unsuitable for our purposes.
The GFDL was developed to support making Free Content versions of software manuals, textbooks, and other large references. It has some heavy requirements for what you have to distribute with a document under the GFDL. For example, you have to include a copy of the GFDL, a changelog, as well as "transparent" (i.e. source) versions if you distribute over 100 copies.
These requirements aren't really all that onerous for large volumes of text. But for wikimanqala, we really want to have each article redistributable on its own. wikimanQala articles can be as small as 1-2 printed pages. For such small documents, it just doesn't make sense to require people to pass out another 10 pages of legalese text, as well as a CD full of Wiki markup.
Consider these small "publishers" who would distribute stacks of photocopied printouts of wikimanqala articles:
- Handcrafter giving the instructions with her boards
- A game promoter giving away flyers with rules
- A school teacher using some maths related material
Burdening these publishers with restrictions meant for software documentation or textbooks would mean that they'd either ignore our license -- a bad precedent to set -- or, more likely, just not use our work.
We make our content Free so we can collaborate on this wiki, but also because we want it to be seen and used. We can't serve travellers with useful information if they can't get to that information in the first place.
- Duplication. A copy of that license, plus the copyright notice of the document must be duplicated along with the work itself. In practical terms, this means that any fan website would have to post a copy of the GFDL alongside even a single article that was reposted.
- Images. The GFDL makes no explicit mention of fair use rules in its terms. Images and other documents that are added to a collection must be released under the GFDL, which requires the explicit approval of the owner of the copyright.
Because of these restrictions, we have chosen to avoid the GFDL for all wikimanqala content.
Why wikimanQala uses the Creative Commons License
Early on in the creation of wikimanQala, Víktor Bautista i Roca, the creator of this wiki, decided that the GFDL was incompatible with the goals of the project. Although the GFDL does fit our purposes for the most part, ignoring the inconvenient clauses would be a bad precedent. After consulting the main contributor, Ralf Gering, they agreed about a license.
Therefore, wikimanQala adopted the Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5, a shorter and more legible license published by the Creative Commons. The CC-by-sa 2.5 license provides the necessary freedom and flexibility that a mancala gamer can need.
A lightweight alternative
The license we've chosen, the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5, is much easier and more lightweight. We think that using the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license (cc-by-sa 2.5) meets our goal of having copyleft protection on wikimanqala content, without putting an excessive burden on small publishers. All that needs to be included are copyright notices, author attribution, and the URL of the license; this can be done in a short paragraph at the end of the article.
| For reproducing the oware page the note would be something like: |
| © wikimanQala From: http://www.wikimanqala.org/wiki/Oware |
| If you have more space, and you want to, you can take a look at the bottom of the page, on the by: section and write something like: |
| © wikimanQala From: http://www.wikimanqala.org/wiki/Oware |
The big downside of not using the GFDL is that GFDL content — like Wikipedia articles — cannot be included in wikimanQala articles. This is a restriction of the GFDL — you're not allowed to change the license for the content, unless you're the original copyright holder. This is kind of a pain for contributors, but we figured it was better to make it easy for users and distributors to comply with our license.
Creative Commons has plans to issue a new revision of their suite of licenses at some point in the future. Compatibility with other Free licenses is "a top priority", and we can expect that some time after that version change, articles created on wikimanQala can be distributed under the GFDL. (GFDL compatibility was supposed to be part of the 2.0 version change, but didn't make it in.)
If and when the CC licenses become GFDL compatible, other Free Content authors can include wikimanqala content into their work, even though we can't include GFDL work into wikimanQala.
Other options
If not having your contributions under the GFDL is unacceptable to you for some reason there are a couple of different options.
- You can contact the Free Software Foundation (FSF), authors of the GFDL, and Creative Commons, authors of the by-sa license, and let them know that the fact that their licenses don't mix is causing you difficulty.
- You can dual license your work under both the by-sa and the GFDL. Note that this makes collaboration between editors more difficult, and requires some attention by you to the stipulations of the GFDL.
- You can choose not to contribute to wikimanQala. We're sorry our goals don't align with yours, but we hope you can make a contribution somewhere else!
