[Campaigns-l] becoming concerned - what is your license?

[Erik Moeller]

On 7/7/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> This is standard practice in MediaWiki software, used everywhere on the
> web, as for example at Wikipedia.

To clarify: When you install MediaWiki, you get to choose a copyright
for your wiki. The default is "no license" (i.e. traditional
copyright). Wikia chose the GFDL for its wikis, the license used by
Wikipedia.

I do believe they should be commended for that. I know of no other
large wiki hosting company that makes its pages available as free
content by default.

Wikia also makes the database dumps of its wikis available in
MediaWiki's standard XML format:
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Database_download

What this means is that it would be trivial for me to set up a new,
non-profit wiki with the same content as campaigns.wikia.com (though
without its user database).

As for the general question whether it's OK to have this on a
for-profit: I think it's a good idea for now, as Wikia has a paid
staff that helps to build communities like this one. It would be
difficult to bootstrap a non-profit with the same level of
professionalism. Given that the content is under a free license, it
can always be migrated later.

Since Jimmy is also the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, a
non-profit that operates Wikipedia, I believe he will even be open to
lending his support to such an effort if it makes sense. But even if
he chose to oppose it, the community could go in that direction if it
wanted to. Wikia holds no special rights to the content developed on
its wikis.

Now, to the bloggers on this mailing list: Is _your_ blog under a
Creative Commons license? ;-) If not, you can choose one here:
http://creativecommons.org/license/

Regards,
Erik
(MediaWiki guy, not associated with Wikia)