Wikimedia to adopt Creative Commons Licence
The Wikimedia Foundation has just announced important changes to its licensing regime. The Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License will be used to "support greater interoperability and re-usability of Wikimedia content. The current GNU Free Documentation License will continue to be supported." The full press release is published on the Wikimedia Foundation website here. In essence:
All Wikimedia content can be used for any purpose, as long as proper credit is given and modifications are made available under the same terms. This open access approach to copyright is supported using a license which explicitly grants everyone those freedoms. The decision will result in all of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects moving from the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) to the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA) as their primary content license. The GFDL, which has served Wikipedia since its inception, will continue to be supported where possible, but not to the detriment of interoperability.I guess this simplifies things for supporters and users of open content. The original licensing was geared more towards licensing software and so not 100% compatible with the content on Wikipedia. Creative Commons wasn't around when it started up so I suppose this would have been the best option available that was inline with the creators philosophies and views on content. How does this fit in with your own views on content or the way you work/teach/learn? Are you allowed to use or recognise the value of open content and how to use it? Apparently Wikimedia has over 6 million articles across it sites which will make a nice addition to the 160 million or so CC licensed resources that are already out there. Used with an understanding of how to assess the validity/accuracy etc of content, open content seems like a good thing to have at your disposal.
