[wos] RfC: A Free Content and Expression Definition

[Erik Moeller]

The free culture movement is growing. Hackers have created a completely
free operating system called GNU/Linux that can be used and shared by
anyone for any purpose. A community of volunteers has built the largest
encyclopedia in history, Wikipedia, which is used by more people every
day than CNN.com or AOL.com. Thousands of individuals have chosen to
upload photos to Flickr.com under free licenses. But - just a minute.
What exactly is a "free license"?

In the free software world, the two primary definitions - the Free
Software Definition and the Open Source Definition - are both fairly
clear about what uses must be allowed. Free software can be freely
copied, modified, modified and copied, sold, taken apart and put back
together. However, no similar standard exists in the sphere of free
content and free expressions.

We believe that the highest standard of freedom should be sought for as
many works as possible. And we seek to define this standard of freedom
clearly. We call this definition the "Free Content and Expression
Definition", and we call works which are covered by this definition
"free content" or "free expressions". 

Neither these names nor the text of the definition itself are final yet.
In the spirit of free and open collaboration, we invite your feedback
and changes. The definition is published in a wiki. You can find it at:

        http://freedomdefined.org/ or http://freecontentdefinition.org/

Please use the URL <http://freedomdefined.org/static/> (including the
trailing slash) when submitting this link to high-traffic websites.

There is a stable and an unstable version of the definition. The stable
version is protected, while the unstable one may be edited by anyone. Be
bold and make changes to the unstable version, or make suggestions on
the discussion page. Over time, we hope to reach a consensus. Four
moderators will be assisting this process:

      * Erik Möller - co-initiator of the definition. Free software
        developer, author and long time Wikimedian, where he initiated
        two projects: Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons.
      * Benjamin Mako Hill - co-initiator of the definition. Debian
        hacker and author of the Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible, board
        member of Software in the Public Interest, Software Freedom
        International, and the Ubuntu Foundation.
      * Mia Garlick. General Counsel at Creative Commons, and an expert
        on IP law. Creative Commons is, of course, the project which
        offers many easy-to-use licenses to authors and artists, some of
        which are free content licenses and some of which are not.
      * Angela Beesley. One of the two elected trustees of the Wikimedia
        Foundation. Co-founder and Vice President of Wikia, Inc.

None of the moderators is acting here in an official capacity related to
their affiliations. Please treat their comments as personal opinion
unless otherwise noted. The Creative Commons project has welcomed the
effort to clearly classify existing groups of licenses, and will work to
supplement this definition with one which covers a larger class of
licenses and works.

In addition to changes to the definition itself, we invite you to submit
logos that can be attached to works or licenses which are free under
this definition:

        http://freedomdefined.org/Logo_contest

One note on the choice of name. Not all people will be happy to label
their works "content", as it is also a term that is heavily used in
commerce. This is why the initiators of the definition compromised on
the name "Free Content and Expression Definition" for the definition
itself. We are suggesting "Free Expression" as an alternative term that
may lend itself particularly to usage in the context of artistic works.
However, we remain open on discussing the issue of naming, and invite
your feedback in this regard.

We encourage you to join the open editing phase, to take part in the
logo contest, or to provide feedback. We aim to release a 1.0 version of
this definition fairly soon.

Please forward this announcement to other relevant message boards and
mailing lists.

Thanks for your time,

Erik Möller and Benjamin Mako Hill