OH, I see: Don't put your eggs all in one basket. Fred
> There are two caveats: nobody can tell the future of human cultural > history or any individual legal organization, and while the repository > and > wikis as a whole, and virtually all legally hostable media of genuine > value, > are preserved indefinitely, obviously no guarantee can be given > concerning > any specific individual image or article. > > Beyond that, the best guarantee is the license it's under. The > Foundation > licenses all its data and content (with the sole exception of non-free > images used to illustrate articles on local wikis) under a license that > allows anyone to use, copy, amend, or distribute them. The explicit > purpose > of doing so is so that anyone wishing to can not only redistribute it, > but > if they are unhappy with its prospects in WMF's custodianship, they can > take > all of it and archive it or fork from it - that is, start their own > version > based on all content, descriptions, data and articles they wish to take > and > use. > > That right is enshrined on Wikipedia in policy and license - it's known > as > the "*right to fork*" [ie, to create derivatives and copies]. Our > forking > FAQ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Forking> expands on this > giving details of where data can be downloaded, as well as Wikipedia > holding > a list of websites that mirror its > content<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Websites_which_use_Wikipedia>for > anyone's use. > > As the financial market crash proved, promises made by one organization > are > only useful insofar as that organization can promise to endure and meet > them. Our approach is to spread our content and make sure others know we > actively support re-archiving and reuse of it, ensuring that copies and > archives will always exist. > > At worst I cannot be sure if all data is routinely provided - a staff > member > can comment on this - but the policy, rights, traditions, choice of > license, > and endorsement of other sites doing so in practice, is our way of > ensuring > a practical commitment is made. > > FT2 > > > On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Fae <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I'm taking part in an images discussion workshop with a number of >> academics tomorrow and could do with a statement about the WMF's long >> term commitment to supporting Wikimedia Commons (and other projects) >> in terms of the public availability of media. Is there an official >> published policy I can point to that includes, say, a 10 year or 100 >> commitment? >> >> If it exists, this would be a key factor for researchers choosing >> where to share their images with the public. >> >> Thanks, >> Fae >> > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
