Talk:Free content

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Copyfree was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 04 April 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Free content. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Computing: Software / Free and open-source software Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
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	This article is supported by Free and open-source software (assessed as High-importance).

Open Access Top‑importance

Free content is part of WikiProject Open Access, a collaborative attempt at improving the coverage of topics related to Open Access and at improving other articles with the help of materials from Open Access sources. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Open AccessWikipedia:WikiProject Open/Open access task forceTemplate:WikiProject Open AccessOpen access articles

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WikiProject Open Access to-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Creative Commons licensing (to replace Creative Commons license); Creative Commons Attribution License (currently a redirect), reproducible research (currently a redirect), supplementary material. Scholarly Open Access (currently a redirect)
Cleanup : Access2Research
Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stub-Class Open access articles.
Other : add {{WikiProject Open Access}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess;
- Check media files uploaded by the Open Access Media Importer for missing or incomplete categorization or lack of descriptions, or put the files into suitable Wikipedia articles. See also recent uploads of open-access files more generally.

Open (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Open, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.OpenWikipedia:WikiProject OpenTemplate:WikiProject OpenOpen articles

Law Low‑importance

	Law portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles
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Philosophy Low‑importance

	Philosophy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles
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Intellectual property (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Intellectual property, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Intellectual propertyWikipedia:WikiProject Intellectual propertyTemplate:WikiProject Intellectual propertyIntellectual property articles

Text and/or other creative content from Open content was copied or moved into Free content with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Archives

1

"Successor project": incorrect term

A successor project is one that completely takes over from the first project. More than once here, there's mention of Creative Commons "successor projects", which is impossible because Creative Commons is still operating. I'm sure those projects belong in the article, but there needs to be a better descriptive word for them. TooManyFingers (talk) 21:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 6 March 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 07:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Free content → Open content – I think ‘Open content’ is a more general name for this and free content (like free software) is a more philosophical concept. See: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html Avoinlähde (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Google Ngrams, pageviews (1,800 for free, 130 for open yesterday) and Google search (15 billion hits for free content, but 10 billion for open content). Oh, and this time the pageviews have a lower margin of error; Google shows different Knowledge Engine links for free and open content searches. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:21, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per EpicPupper, also Wikidata will show that the vast majority of other language wikis appear to use words that translate to "free" and I have not found a mention of "open" yet. Our title policies tend to lean more toward actual usage than interpretation of definitions. ASUKITE 00:39, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Definition of free cultural works

The lead confidently asserts that free content are things that meet freedomdefined.org's definition of a free cultural work, with a primary source citation that just links to that definition. It may be how we define it, but is it really the one agreed-upon definition? I don't think it is.Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 14:12, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For being permanently linked on the main page, this article in general is... not very good. I have no idea where to start improving it though. Frankly, I wonder whether it's even notable. Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 14:27, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, Snowmanonahoe, that the article is not very good. It is outdated in so many ways. I cleaned up some minor formatting and grammar errors today, but that isn't the real problem. So very many things have changed since 2010-2015 which is when the article had more relevance.--FeralOink (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I reduced some of the emphasis on the Free Cultural Knowledge definition, and managed to rework the Open Content section into just a general History section. The problem is that is still way out of date, and at least 40% of the article is just cited to Richard Stallman and the Open Content Project, and so on. The article needs more secondary sources rather than just so many projects. Mrfoogles (talk) 23:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A better short definition in the lead is still needed. Currently we still have the Free Cultural Knowledge project's definition, even if it's not attributed as the objectively correct one, because I don't have a citation for any other ones. Probably there's a paper somewhere. Mrfoogles (talk) 23:25, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The lead needs proper sourcing

While the WP:LEAD may be written without sources if the content is uncontroversial enough and the summary of the body of the article is uncontroversial, in this case there are clearly problems. The phrase unrestricted by copyright and other legal limitations on use excludes CC BY-SA material, in which case CC BY-SA material is not "free content" (per this phrase), because CC BY-SA material is copyrighted. Anyone or any organisation who copies generic Wikipedia material without respecting the licence is violating the copyright of the Wikipedians who authored that content (including this talk page section, for example). CC BY-SA forbids the possibility of copying without attribution and forbids the possibility of copying without giving the same freedom to others.

As per the above section, first we need WP:RS for the history and usage of the term, and the various definitions, and then the lead can be corrected (e.g. with repeat references). Boud (talk) 11:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed at least that part of the lead, while we wait for proper sourcing. Overall, the lead is probably not too bad, apart from the sourcing problem. Boud (talk) 11:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Definition of Free Cultural Works image in lead

@CheeseyHead I removed the image because it seems like an arbitrary free content project. It doesn't need to be replaced because there is already a second good image in the lead -- there's no need for two images in the lead specifically, and the logo of one particular free license development project doesn't really provide any value and given the obscurity of that project is undue weight in my opinion.

Is there a good reason to keep it? Otherwise, I think it should be removed. Mrfoogles (talk) 03:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do think that the second image isn't the best choice for the "lead image", mostly because of the language barrier. Maybe something similar could be used. I can try and find something myself. CheeseyHead (talk) 19:21, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More on this: If I knew what the paper said, I could maybe make an image myself, one that could easily be translated into other languages. I don't have a program that can create an SVG, but I could still try. CheeseyHead (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the image again given I think it's still worse than the Khmer image; some alternatives could be File:A Decision Tree for Choosing Free-Libre Licenses for Cultural and Technological Work.png or File:Mauran introducing free content movement.jpg -- honestly, I don't have a lot of ideas, though. I think it's hard to find a good image for this article. I guess a collage of a bunch of free-content logos could be used? But it might be better to just have something general like the Khmer image. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]