Community Meeting Agenda 9 February 2010

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I'm getting an error with ID 8531 Laralee 21:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

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Agenda and Notes

Discussion Items

Feedback Requested: proposed changes to our FamilySearch wiki license

Summary: Ben Bennett is the product manager for the Wiki and requested this item be added to the agenda. Ben will be joining our meeting and will lead this discussion. For background on this discussion, the FamilySearch wiki uses a creative commons non-commercial license vs. the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license which Wikipedia.org[1] and many other well known wikis use. As the hosts of the wiki, we are proposing a change in the licensing of our content in order to allow our community members (and others) greater flexibility in the way that the wiki content is used. Prior to doing so, we want to solicit community input on this planned change. We plan to solicit input from the wiki community at large starting on Wednesday, February 10th - Friday, February 19th via a notice on the wiki home page. After the feedback period is complete, we will communicate the planned decision and appeal process should any contributors disagree with the outcome. Additional details (and links to the exact language for the different licenses) can be found below.

References: 1. Current FS Wiki License: Creative Commons non-commercial [2] 2. Proposed FS Wiki License (pending community input): Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike[3] 3. General Description of all Creative Commons licenses: Creative Commons Summary - All Licenses [4]

Note that the full legal language of each license is available by clicking on the "Legal Code" link at the bottom of each page.

Detail: FamilySearch originally selected a non-commercial license for the wiki because we did not want a commercial company to be able to put a different face on the content and wanted to keep our content ad-free. That said, as we've looked at ways that other wikis are run, organized and licensed (namely Wikipedia.org [5]) and considered how our community and FS may want to use content in the future, we think that a license change may be in order. In support of this intention, some research with our legal advisors at FamilySearch has helped us understand why a non-profit, community site such as Wikipedia.org [6] might choose a license that permitted “commercial” use of the content. The legal advisors informed us that “commercial” is associated with anything where money is being charged. The ambiguity of the non-commercial license could place restrictions on the FamilySearch wiki, limiting future use of the content, even for legitimate non-commercial purposes.

Some examples of activities that are not allowed under the current FamilySearch wiki license are included below: 1. I contribute a large portion of information to begin a new article. Others edit the information, but the bulk of the content is still my original work. Later, I want to utilize the information with edits in a class syllabus for a conference. Under the current license, I would not be able to do this as a paid conference presenter. I could use my original contribution, but not any of the updated, current information contributed by others. 2. I am teaching a free family history class, but no Internet access is available at the venue. I want to print copies of a few articles from the wiki for the participants in my class. I need to recoup my copying costs, and so I want to charge a small fee for the copies. It is questionable whether or not this would be allowed under the current license. 3. I am a commercial company and I want to contribute content to the existing wiki, rather than create my own online research tool. I determine that the FamilySearch Research Wiki is the best place to send my customers to get the most current research information. I want to provide links to the wiki on my website to show my customers how the wiki may work with my own products and still provide a unified, good experience for my customers. By linking to the wiki, I will drive more traffic to the wiki and help my customers get the research help they need. Some of my customers may even become potential contributors to the wiki. I cannot do this under the current license. 4. A non-profit entity realizes that some parts of the world do not have access to the Internet. They decide to print relevant articles of interest for those parts of the world, and package them in a small booklet to be sold at cost to peoples in these regions. This would not be allow under the current license.

While the commercial license has been implemented with Wikipedia (see [7]) , it is interesting to note that we have been unable to find any company who has chosen to risk using this license in a commercial way. The general ambiguity of the Creative Commons licenses appears to have limited commercial companies from using the content, possibly due to the potential risk of unclear interpretations of the terms of these licenses.

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