Wikinews/License

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This page was used to collect arguments regarding a license for Wikinews following the earlier discussion and a poll at Wikinews/License straw poll and preceeding the new vote at Wikinews/Licensure Poll for the new vote.

Voting is now closed! The results were posted to Wikinews-l. Vote counts at the time of closing were at Wikinews/Licensure Poll/Results. The Wikimedia Foundation decided on September 25 to implement the CC-BY-2.5 license across all language versions of Wikinews. Thanks to everyone for participating.

Creative Commons

Attribution

Arguments:

One-way compatibility with the GFDL (CC-BY content can be incorporated into GFDL content).
Maximizes distribution, while any possible improvements are likely to be too late to be incorporated into Wikinews, and even if not, of a nature that allows them to be incorporated without violating copyrights -- the copyleft effect is not worth the reduction of the target audience.

Arguments:

Incompatible both ways at present, but may be two-way-compatible with the GFDL in the future.

Who is attributed?

As of version 2.5, the Creative Commons Licenses CC-BY (Attribution) and CC-BY-SA (Attribution and "Share-Alike", i.e. Copyleft) make it possible to designate an entity, e.g. "Wikimedia" or "The Wikinews community", as the author of a work. See CC-BY 2.5, 4 b) as an example. This eliminates one of the main arguments against using them, i.e. that only the "Original Author" receives attribution. But who should receive attribution? Wikimedia.

The original author

The Wikinews community

Arguments:

Strengthens Wikinews identity and search engine ranking, avoids disenfranchising the community.
Not a legal entity, so may not be possible.

The Wikimedia Foundation

Arguments:

Legal entity, so definitely a possibility.

GNU FDL

Arguments:

Two-way compatibility with the GFDL.

Public domain

Arguments:

Does not legally exist in some countries as authors cannot give up "moral rights" (particularly attribution).
Can be difficult to grant even if it is legally possible (e.g. clickthrough may not be sufficient).
Does not require attribution -- this may reduce Google ranking, or lead to plagiarism (however, see moral rights issue above).
Eliminates licensing issues where it is perceived to be functioning, encourages free sharing without any understanding of copyright law.

Usable for any purpose

Arguments:

Essentially the same as public domain but without the legal issues (see en:Template:CopyrightedFreeUse).

Dual-license

GNU FDL / CC-BY-SA

Arguments:

Advantages of CC-BY-SA while allowing one-way-compatibility (e.g. use of Wikinews stories in GFDL text).

BSD / BSD-like

Arguments:

simplicity; the license covers the restrictions etc. succinctly and is easily understandable
few restrictions placed; can encourage reuse of content
- BSD and variant licenses allow for further restrictions to be added "downstream"; perceived problem of "stealing" -- but the original free content will always be available