[ubuntu-za] [Fwd: Change in Licensing Policy for the Ubuntu Wiki]

[Adi Attar]

For those of you who haven't received this...

My opinion on this is that it's a basic violation of human rights. I've
shared my point of view as recommended in the mail below, and urge any
others who have objections to do the same.

Thanks,
Adi

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Matthew East <matt at mdke.org>
To: adi at cs.wits.ac.za
Subject: Change in Licensing Policy for the Ubuntu Wiki
Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 02:33:05 +0100 (BST)

Dear Contributor to the Ubuntu Wiki,

This email is sent to you to inform you of a change in the Wiki copyright policy.

The Ubuntu Wiki is a collaborative resource, and the product of the Ubuntu community as a whole. Its content, put together by many contributors with different knowledge and points of view, is immensely valuable to us all. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no clear definition of what rights contributors to the Wiki retain over the material that they post, or the extent to which other persons are entitled to copy or modify the material. For example, it would be very useful to ensure that pages from the Ubuntu Wiki may be copied into documentation in the Ubuntu distribution without complex licensing issues, ensuring that those working on documentation can concentrate on producing the best documentation possible rather than legal negotiations.

After discussion among the Ubuntu Community Council and interested community members, many of whom are themselves extensive contributors to the Wiki, we propose that new material on the Ubuntu Wiki should be in the "public domain" [1]. This means that a contributor posting material on the wiki will NOT retain any copyright over the material (although of course they will still be credited in RecentChanges and the page history so that they can take pride in their work), and others can copy or modify it without restriction. The Wiki will be changed to make this clear to those creating or editing pages, and of course external links from the Wiki to documentation under other licences will continue to be welcome.

This decision is not intended in any way to underestimate the value of contributions to the Ubuntu Wiki, and we would like to make a good-faith attempt to ensure that contributors of existing material on the Ubuntu Wiki are happy with this change, hence this mail. We invite any contributors who have any questions or concerns about this plan to contact us at <community-council at lists.ubuntu.com>. In the absence of substantial numbers of objections, this change will be made to the Wiki after approximately one month.

More details can be found here:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WikiLicensing

Many thanks for your contributions to the Ubuntu Wiki, and we hope that you will continue to help!

[1] In some jurisdictions this is not truly possible; we plan to use wording similar to that found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-self to avoid problems in those regions.