User:The wub/Freedom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia - one "Web 2.0" project that gives a damn about copyright
Wikipedia - maybe more free than you think

Most people know that Wikipedia is free as in you don't have to pay for it. But Wikipedia is also free content, meaning you and others are allowed to re-use its content provided that you keep it that way. This page is a brief introduction to the concept of this freedom, and how it applies to Wikipedia.

1 What is freedom?
2 Why is Wikipedia free?
3 How is Wikipedia free?

[edit] What is freedom?

The word free is a little awkward since it can refer to two different things:

Free of charge, often referred to as gratis or free as in beer.
Having freedom, often referred to as libre or free as in speech

Sadly Wikipedia isn't beer. It's still quite good though.

You don't have to pay to read or edit Wikipedia and you never will, therefore Wikipedia is gratis. Now imagine you go to a party where there is "free beer" (or the beverage of your choice). The beer may be gratis i.e. free to drink, but you don't have the right to take it home or to sell it on to other people. Fortunately Wikipedia is libre. If Wikipedia was beer then you could drink as much as you want, take it home, sell it, get the recipe to brew more, and create your own variations on it! All you have to do is credit the people who invited you to the party in the first place, and allow everyone who you give beer to the same rights you had. (This example is less contrived than you might think, something similar was actually done using cola instead of beer - see OpenCola)

Note that just because something is libre doesn't necessarily mean it is gratis. Once you have your libre beer, you can choose to sell it at a price. However you might find people going to other places where they can get it free of charge.

Allow re-use (inc. commercial)