Re: Wiki Usage

[Nick Gammon <nick@...>]

On 12/10/2006, at 1:11 PM, David Burgess wrote:

> I wish to use the Wiki tutorials in a commercial product.
>
> 1) Can I do this? Does a donation to the Wiki support costs help?

As a contributor to the Wiki, I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, my contributions are intended to help other people  
use Lua, and therefore I make them freely and without expecting  
payment. Also, it somehow seems wrong that I don't receive payment,  
but someone else repackages it, and does.

On the other hand, for the goal of reaching a wide audience to be  
met, perhaps repackaging into book form (if that is what you are  
talking about) is a sensible thing to do. Such repackaging would take  
work, and such work might be reasonably compensated by charging for  
it (and the printing and distribution).

For example, the "Programming in Lua" book is a commercial product.  
I'm not sure exactly where the money goes, but I know I paid for it.

Perhaps what would work would be, if such a book or other work were  
to be produced, that is would be acceptable if the articles in it  
were clearly marked as not being copyrighted (by David Burgess, or  
his publisher, at least) but that the copyright remains with the  
original authors - or, that they have been released into the public  
domain.

Thus, even in the book, they are as "free" as they currently are on  
the Wiki.

If you wanted to go down this path you might contact each Wiki  
contributor and get their permission for their work to be reproduced  
under these terms.

- Nick