Template talk:GFDL 1.3

Explain? Improve? Delete?

This template is odd: it merely links to a redirect. (I'm not saying it's bad, merely that it's odd.)

I could alter it so that it links to where the redirect points, but I hesitate to do so. The reason is that the meaning of "Cc" isn't clear to me. This may well be my fault; but for whatever reason "Cc" does vaguely have an aroma of "Creative Commons", whereas what it points to is GFDL. I worry that there could be some mistake here.

I thought I'd see how it's actually used. But it only seems to be used by Template:Self, which itself doesn't seem to be used anywhere.

Yes, Wikipedia does say of GFDL:

On December 1, 2007, Jimmy Wales announced that a long period of discussion and negotiation [...] had produced a proposal supported by both the FSF and Creative Commons to modify the [GFDL] in such a fashion as to allow the possibility for the Wikimedia Foundation to migrate the projects to the similar Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) license. These changes were implemented on version 1.3 of the license, which includes a new provision allowing certain materials released under the license to be used under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license also.

Maybe this is somehow relevant.

Explain? Improve? Delete? -- Hoarier 05:39, 13 May 2011 (PDT)

This kind of template is provided for the case that file upload would be enabled by the technical chief (Steevithak). At the moment the wiki founders Vox and Steevithak neglect the usefulness of that option, but I as old project member strongly recommended it (for usage strictly limited for certain purposes and available just for admins) and expect that sooner or later the founders discover its advantages too. Concurrent wiki Camerapedia has enabled upload, with choice of licenses thru a drop-down list in the upload page. A file license will be documented thru the Template:Self template when chosen from that list. But the Self template uses sub-templates like this "Cc-by-1.3" or "Cc-by-1.2" or "(C)". I've written these for Camerapedia and copied them to Camera-Wiki. Otherwise there won't be any license documentation thru the Self template in CP. In CW these templates are for future use.

I'm no friend of fashionable Share-Alike licenses. Image donators should rework their own works to optimal dynamics, contrast, colors by means of their software before putting them into CW pool, and should not offer lousy quality images with "share alike" license in the hope that anyone would improve them for wiki purposes. Images that we can use unchanged are valuable for the project since we already have a good lot of work with acquiring, choosing, implementing and attributing Flickr images.

GFDL 1.3 was the license always documented as the one under which stuff was published in that wiki, except in the early days when GFDL 1.2 was used. 1.3 is still our wiki license. Camera-Wiki continues the work of old Camerapedia, while new Camerapedia still hasn't found itself. We are obliged not to change the license in respect of the fact that former contributors have written here expecting GFDL 1.3 to be the wiki's and their contributed stuff's license.U. Kulick 06:12, 13 May 2011 (PDT)

Thank you. But that raises a pile of new questions in my tired brain! Without ignoring the other things that you write (which we might get to later), let's look at simple things first. What's the literal meaning of "Cc-by-1.3"? Is it perhaps "Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, thanks to GDFL 1.3 license"? (But no, I don't think that there could be an analogous explanation for "Cc-by-1.2".)

Please don't rush to reply; I have to leave my computer for 20 hours or so. -- Hoarier 06:58, 13 May 2011 (PDT)

I don't know why "cc-by-..." is a valid abbreviation construct. Wikimedia suggests such abbrevations for the Self template. I gave them appropriate postfixes 1.3 and 1.2 for our actual and old license, and not sa for "Share Alike" like it's in fashion in the mind of some Wikimedians. They think that's an advantage, as I explained that can be a disadvantage for us. "Share Alike" is good for wiki projects like "Uncyclopedia".U. Kulick 07:51, 13 May 2011 (PDT)

Wikimedia Commons' "Self" template is here. It has three optional named parameters: "author", "attribution", and "migration". In addition to these, it has one required and up to five optional unnamed parameters, each for a license.

Three examples are given. In one ("1" below), one of these license parameters is specified; in each of the other two ("2" and "3" below), two are specified:

1. "|cc-by-sa"
2. "|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0"
3. "|GFDL|cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0"

Yes, the second and third are the same. There is no conflation here of (A) GFDL (from the Free Software Foundation) and (B) "cc-by-" anything. In the latter, "cc" clearly means Creative Commons, which is not the Free Software Foundation.

Incidentally, the "Licenses" page of Creative Commons tells us of the various kinds of CC licenses:

CC BY	Attribution
CC BY-SA	Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-ND	Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC	Attribution-NoCommercial
CC BY-NC-SA	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-ND	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

Some are ShareAlike, some aren't. Let's put aside the question of whether ShareAlike is suitable for material made expressly for this website, and the questions of whether you or I happen to like the idea. Unless I misunderstand either GFDL or ShareAlike or both, the idea of ShareAlike (although not this particular neologism) is essential to GFDL. (Furthermore, unless I misunderstand either GFDL or NoDerivs or both, the idea of NoDerivs is rejected by GFDL, which encourages share-alike derivatives.)

There is no "CC BY 1.2" or "CC BY 1.3" (however capitalized or hyphenated).

I get the impression that you are:

1. confusing ShareAlike and NoDerivs
2. conflating (a) Creative Commons and (b) GFDL
3. conflating (c) release of Camerapedia.org/Camera-wiki.org text under GFDL and (d) release of images used by Camera-wiki.org under any of various copyleft licences (but generally CC BY-SA or a more restrictive CC license)
4. trying to give the impression that at least one of the share-alike or derivatives-welcome components of GFDL somehow doesn't apply to Camera-wiki.org text

I hope that I am wrong. But if I'm at least partly right, I recommend deleting this material, and, in the future, paying very close attention to what the license actually is, and not getting carried away by ideas of which license would be better. -- Hoarier 16:24, 14 May 2011 (PDT)

I get the impression that You confuse something. I've just copied what I prepared for Camerapedia as minimal set of rights attributions thru Self template. Explicitely w/o share-alike, explicitely refering to the GFDL licenses which were (1.2) and are (1.3) relevant for Camerapedia, and now as well for Camera-Wiki. The whole set of templates is just for being prepared for the day x when uploads will be enabled. But You might be right that I named something wrong. Maybe gfdl-1.2 and gfdl-1.3 would be better self-explaining template names. U. Kulick 17:00, 14 May 2011 (PDT)

Certainly I was confused. Now I think I'm not, but I may be. I'm trying to be careful in what I write, but it's possible that I'm not successful here, and that I'm adding to the confusion. Well, sorry, but I'm trying my best.

So these templates aren't intended for anything that yet exists; they're instead intended as preparation for material files that may be uploaded to Camera-wiki.org in the future. Therefore whether or not they fit neatly with what's available at Flickr (or other image hosting sites) doesn't matter. OK, I understand this.

Let's jump to the end: By "Cc-by-1.x" you seem to mean "GFDL 1.x". Can we please start by renaming the pair of templates accordingly? It doesn't much matter whether this one is "GFDL 1.3" or "Gfdl-1.3", but as the meaning of the former is slightly clearer, it seems better to me. So, "Template:GFDL 1.2" and "Template:GFDL 1.3"?

But you say: Explicitely w/o share-alike, explicitely refering to the GFDL licenses. Here's how Wikipedia describes CC's "ShareAlike": "Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work." (Or the German page [which I am unfortunately unable to understand]: „Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen (ähnlich zur GPL, allerdings inkompatibel)“. GFDL is very much "share-alike" (and very much open to derivatives). From its preamble: This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. (From this translation [an unofficial translation; no official translation exists]: Diese Lizenz ist eine Art des "copyleft", was bedeutet, daß von diesem Dokument abgeleitete Werke ihrerseits in derselben Weise frei sein müssen.) -- Hoarier 18:58, 14 May 2011 (PDT)

No reply, so I moved both pages. -- Hoarier 22:33, 20 May 2011 (PDT)