[cc-community] Which License for a Wiki?

Rob Myers robmyers at mac.com
Sun Jun 5 15:33:41 EDT 2005


On 27 May 2005, at 14:22, Greg London wrote:

> My understanding of CC-SA versus CC-WIKI was that they were
> exactly the same except attribution for the wiki goes to the wiki.
>
> In a collaborative project with lots of contributers,
> I can only see this as a good thing.

But who exactly is it a good thing for?

The problem with cc-wiki was that it was WMIMWYIM (What's Mine Is  
Mine, What's Yours Is Mine) *for the reputation economy*. This may  
have worked fine under the social contract for wiki contribution  
(does it?), but the license would have been popular far beyond wikis  
for that simple reason.

If we look at the first use of cc-wiki, the blog rewriting Lessig's  
"Code", an uncharitable observer might conclude that the license was  
being used to ensure that the original author's name doesn't have to  
be just one of several dozen on the cover of the print edition.

Wikis are amongst the best mechanisms for handling attribution, being  
essentially large online databases. So I don't understand where  
attribution becomes a problem for Wikis. Indeed to my layperson's  
eyes the case that Wiki's need help with attribution is suspect.

- Rob.



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