User talk:AndriusKulikauskas

Please note: Content on this page is in the Public Domain except as it notes otherwise.

Hi Andrius. I saw your question to Bill about making this wiki Public Domain. The problem with this is that it prevents people moving content here from other Wikia sites or from Wikipedia. If you have clear templates set up to distinguish when content is not public domain, then it should be ok to multi-license this wiki as public domain which can be done by editing MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning and Project:Copyrights. Have you spoken to the founder of this wiki, GregWolff about this? Angela talk 11:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC) Presumed Public Domain

Angela, Thank you! Greg and I have been in touch regarding this and I think he is supportive. Yes your proposed solution would work. I didn't realize that the GNU FDL was compatible with multi-licensing. Is that what you are suggesting? I will pursue that. I suppose an issue is that Public Domain except as noted is not always compatible with GNU FDL as the latter is more narrow regarding what it implies for copyright material that gets included because it doesn't have a notion of except as noted. Does this wiki need to be licensed under the GNU FDL? Thank you for explaining! Andrius Kulikauskas 21:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for Public Domain
Is there any way to set the terms of the Origins wiki to Public Domain except as noted?

The GNU FDL license is not compatible with the kind of social networking and outreach that is at the heart of sharing food stories:

* It discourages moral people from using their best judgement in sharing excerpts to foster social networkng. * It discourages many commercial uses of the work which are important for sustainability. * It discourages the inclusion of authentic sources when they are copyright. * It is in many ways ignored and thus discourages people who do care about morality.

The current terms at the Origins wiki make it impractical for our Minciu Sodas laboratory to invest ourselves in the Origins wiki and instead to focus on our work at My Food Story which is in the Public Domain except as noted. This is unfortunate!

Dual Licensing
Andrius, As you know any creator has the freedom to license their work under whatever terms they choose. They are not limited to a single license. In order to post contributions on the wikia sites, contributors must license their work under at least be GFDL. (This is a wikia policy to maintain compatibility with Wikipedia materials.)

In addition, contributors may also put their work in the public domain. They can do this by either making a note on their contributions or posting the same material on other sites operating under different licenses (as you have done with MyFoodStory).

Personally, I favor a creative commons license that requires attribution over contributing material into the public domain. Without the attribution clause, the material can readily taken out of context and may be used to directly contradict the original intent and purpose of the contributor. It seems that the attribution clause serves readers better by ensuring that they can always get back to the source of the material.

Nevertheless, at this time there does not seem to be a compelling reason to set a general policy requiring contributions to be licensed under another license in addition to the GFDL. I suggest that contributors wishing to make their materials available under additional licenses place a statement to that effect on their User page. --Gregwolff 01:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)  Presumed Public Domain or please clarify

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Greg, Thank you for your reply. Yes, individuals can always dual license their contributions. However, if we want to invest ourselves in a body of content, and encourage others to do so, then it is important to agree on a license (or nonlicense) that makes for a commons. That is for me the compelling reason for working solely in the Public Domain except as noted and encouraging others to do so likewise. A strong Public Domain is a default that allows for a true commons. You note that the importance of an attribution clause. But I believe that it is important to leave this to the best judgement of social networkers as we work on each other's behalf and not be too strict about that. I don't believe that the Origins wiki should be tattooed in every use of content from it. That is not sharing, in my opinion. I think that our Minciu Sodas laboratory does better without that kind of approach. And even with the GNU FDL material can always be placed in a different context and contradict the intent and purpose. Indeed, the material at the wiki is fluid at any event. And what is the exit strategy for the material here in the event that the Origins wiki fails? This is not a commons that I myself can rationally contribute to. And it does not address my concerns. I am a bit sad because I saw an opening in what Angela wrote and we might take that. But perhaps most practically, what are the examples that you can point to of the GNU FDL or Creative Commons at work in terms of reuse? How many times is it actually followed to the letter? What does that say about the morality and culture? And why should the world be bound to an American Silicon Valley approach to law and copyright? I have worked for almost ten years to develop a culture of the Public Domain at our lab (20,000 letters, 2,000 wiki pages) and we're enjoying the benefits in terms of people learning to share freely and think in terms of reuse. I don't see that in the GNU FDL or Creative Commons cultures. And how many years do you think such fads will be around for? What is your prediction? Isn't that important to think through before making major investments? My life is very precious! Andrius Kulikauskas 06:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a very concrete example. I would like to include your sentence ''I would be most interested in seeing stories related to the existing stories. For example, who is buying fish from the fishermen? Who processes the fish? What are their stories? What food sources have started replacing the missing fish? Where is that food being raised?'' at our lab's page of Endeavors so that I and others could see how it might relate to other projects at our lab and keep it in mind. For my purposes I might simply link back to the original page. However, that is not enough under a Creative Commons Attribution license, where I am expected to link back to the license itself! http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ and keep track of that (make clear the boundaries of the excerpt). So this form of sharing creates a burden, a perpetual tax on sharing that can never be completely paid, so that the content can never organically enter into another work without bringing along its own pedigree. But the GNU FDL license is that much worse. It requires that: You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. An eight page license to go along with one sentence! I have never seen anybody follow these licenses! And that is why I think they are immoral and detrimental to any human commons! This is corporate culture taken to its extreme and I don't understand how can moral human beings participate? What is the logic?

On a deeper level, let's consider Wikia and Minciu Sodas as such. Who should follow whose lead? Minciu Sodas has a fantastically vibrant stream of life changing contributions, see here, from around the world, but including the developing world. Wikia, from what I can see, has nothing remotely comparable, but instead is about as real as Harry Potter and Star Wars (and to my surprise, considers taking screen shots as fair use!) Minciu Sodas does it with no resources (except my 70,000 USD credit card and personal debts over these last 9 years) and we're proving self-sustainable and we have a great future (in part because we're designed for failure as our activity is distributed and our content is in the Public Domain). Wikia has much greater resources and its future is to me entirely unclear. What is the reason that Wikia should be given preference? In my eyes, it's only capitalism, the abusive side of it. But why should normal human beings care about that logic? Especially those living in Africa and such. I think they don't. And it would be wrong for me to encourage them here. This is a place that will take from our venues but won't give back to them, at least not on equal terms. And here we see ethics at work. That is the kind of culture that I am working to instill.

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Greg, Thank you for your letter which I share here so that I might respond here. AndriusKulikauskas 19:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Andrius,

We have had this discussion before and, I thought, agreed that we are working towards exactly the same ethical model for a commons. The primary differences between our current positions stem almost entirely from different interpretations of the technical legal agreements.

I will eventually respond to your notes on the talk page, but am very disheartened by the dogmatic approach you espouse on your talk page which seems to discount all of our previous discussions.

From a practical standpoint, all of the investment by your lab in the origins wiki can be designated as part of the public domain. There is absolutely no problem with this. The only question is whether other people have the choice of whether or not to place all of their contributions in the public domain. Taking away this freedom is a huge step. Neither of us is advocating that they be required to place everything in the public domain. You allow for the "except as noted" (opt out) I prefer the opt-in approach for two reasons:
 * #1 it is respectful of the current social norms (does not offend people)
 * #2 requires an affirmative action (does not surprise people when they see their work being used without attribution)

The Creative Commons licenses have been widely used and very successful in creating a commons. The minimal license simply says that you as the creator can specify the form of attribution (acknowledgment) desired. Other than that, it essentially no additional restrictions with respect to the public domain alternative.

I am glad that the people in your laboratory are happy working in the public domain. However, you can hopefully understand that this way of thinking is a big leap for most people. Can you understand fears of a small cooperative that their words and stories would be used by large retailers to sell products which have a direct and negative impact on the cooperative?

I am writing to you privately because the tone of your post suggests that there is absolutely no room for compromise and that further discussion would be pointless. I hope this is not the case.

-Greg     Presumed Public Domain or please clarify

Greg,

Thank you for your letter and attention to my concerns.

I suppose several things triggered my response. Once was your statement that there does not seem to be a compelling reason to set a general policy requiring contributions to be licensed under another license in addition to the GFDL. As I explain above, the Public Domain is one of the fundamental principles of the work of my laboratory, Minciu Sodas. My own participation and that which I can encourage depends on this. I would hope that that in itself would be a reason to explore solutions. Your statement doesn't encourage that exploration.

I was also disappointed that you dismissed the possible solution which Angela allowed for, multi-licensing. This means that this is your personal decision. That is very good in that somebody is responsible and that person is you, as it should be. But it also means that I don't understand your guiding principles or I don't believe in them. Maybe more importantly, that my own principles - however misguided they may be - are not worthy of a "win-win" solution (perhaps like multi-licensing) but rather I should compromise regarding them.

You argue in your letter that your are in favor of "opt-in" rather than "opt-out". I suppose this is the essential issue that separates us. What is the default? For you, copyright is the default to which Public Domain is an exception. For me, Public Domain is the default to which copyright is an exception. You have the context of the modern world that we live in. I have the context of that same world prior to 1976 but also the traditional, pre-copyright world that many of our most interesting participants live in. And perhaps most importantly, the context of my own personal "right to share" which we might say "freedom to care for things myself without having to care about their owners". So you see the "freedom of copyright" that I take away, but you don't see the "freedom of Public Domain" that you take away. In this discourse, I feel you expect to me to assume your world. Furthermore, you deny me my efforts to change our world.

If people want to copyright their work, let them be the ones to make the extra effort. They are the ones to judge that their work should be protected. If they don't want to make that extra effort, and frankly, most people don't care, then I say let it be part of the commons without restrictions, by which I mean the Public Domain. Otherwise, let them define exactly the contours of their work and be good stewards for it. We took this approach at MyFoodStory so that we have about 1500 copyrighted stories out of 2,000.

I don't understand your concerns regarding how large retailers might misuse the words and stories of cooperatives. Could you supply some historical examples? That would greatly help. We found thousands of stories but I didn't encounter any such examples of abuse. Although I would not expect large retailers to direct their marketing against, or even acknowledge, single cooperatives as such, or even the cooperative movement as a whole. Maybe that might happen on the wholesale level. However, I don't understand how the GNU FDL could help, it seems to me here like a nuclear missile shield in a world of cruise missles and suitcase bombs. True enough, it worked for Ronald Reagan as a bluff that shook up the Politburo. Maybe I'm just not comfortable bluffing.

If there's no compelling reason to multi-license, then I don't understand why Creative Commons licenses are relevant.

I also don't think it's accurate to call Public Domain "a license". The point is that it's not a license, it's not a legal position, it's a moral position. It exists even in a world without law. And it can be supplemented by all sorts of ethical expectations such as attribution. Those expectations can even be enforced in a variety of ways. Indeed, a variety of legal actions and political actions can be taken in cases where there is real harm done. They don't have to be legally relevant, they just have to be ethically relevant. The law is tit-for-tat whereas ethics is a holistic culture. My concern is to contribute to a culture, and even to create an ethic.

If your concern is to reach out to and include others, then I hope that your first wish is to start with your own friends and champions, and not exclude them. Yet indeed I feel awkward, having invested so much energy and heart at My Food Story, to read that it's a pilot project, almost to imply that it would be fine for it to just end at this point. We have integrated your vision very deeply into our culture and I speak not only of myself but also of others who have come to think of food stories as a central "reality check" for our many different kinds of projects. It is difficult for me to ponder your vision for Origins Wikia without understanding how you would like My Food Story to carry on at our lab.

I have always emphasized that it's not about content, it's about people. If we're building a commons, then it's about a shared culture. That means that certain behavior will be filtered in, and certain filtered out. We can't include all behaviors. Thus certain people will have priority who behave well. It seems to me like the Wikia system is filtering in for the unoriginal documentation of the unreal: Television shows, Holywood movies, Cult books, Mythologies, etc. The Minciu Sodas system is filtering in for people who are trying to get things done through creatively working on their own personal endeavors, explorations, growth, as at: http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors Can the two fit together? Maybe they can. Let's think. But I would be inclined to have the Wikia system contribute energy to Minciu Sodas rather than the other way around. Is that possible?

I think about twenty years ahead in terms of our laboratory. But certainly my focus is on the next ten years, how to organize a culture of independent thinkers with 100,000 active and 1,000,000 supportive participants. I also hope that one-tenth as many might be in Lithuania so that we might be the dominant social force there and at least one country would exemplify our society. That may help clarify why I stay so true to those minimal principles that I have found to be relevant for our culture. I think it would help me greatly to learn more about your own vision ten and twenty years out for Origins. Then we may be able to support you in the long run. Whereas I don't understand why the Creative Commons, GNU FDL or Wikia will be relevant in ten or twenty years. I imagine it would also help to hear from Wikia leaders what their greater vision is and how it is unfolding. We might work-in-parallel with the long run in mind but work separately in the short run if we can't accomodate each other's principles.

Our lab's culture is in the very early stages. I don't think it's strong enough to counter an alien world. Actually, we don't even have well-defined membership. That is why I encourage us to invest in our own world where we can discover the culture that we need for ourselves. Independent thinkers are in the wonderful position of finding meaning in their own work and so they are able to create their own culture. I also believe that they separately can discover the same culture. I want people to realize this and to learn from them what that culture must be. That is why I take so seriously your position and ponder it. But I'm not interested to invest in a "commons" that is outside of our culture. The minimal rules seem to be as I write here: http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Rules These are rules that help us all coordinate our investments so they might overlap constructively. You know the enormous assets that we have built during MyFoodStory and you know that they won't be dispersed. It's not the law that cares for them but the human bonds that we have forged.

I'm happy to have two cultures, yours and mine. Let each of them succeed on their own terms. Then let's acknowledge and support both. Who might prefer the Origins culture, and who might prefer the My Food Story culture? I have next steps in mind and am keen to coordinate with you.


 * In terms of outreach, I note that Sasha Mrkailo, Markus Petz and I have found on the Internet some 50 sources of food stories. Some of these, like the Voice Of America articles, or the USAID stories, are in the Public Domain and we might engage them regarding My Food Story.  We might first engage those who are more interested in the Public Domain and see how we might build on what we have done.  Similarly, we might look for those inclined to the culture you're fostering, but certainly I imagine those already at Wikia in the category of Food and Drink and other categories as well.  Wikipedia might be another source, perhaps one might take materials from there.  I note that I tried to link to our Nablus food stories from the Nablus article but that link was deleted twice.  Another idea is to work with the Appropedia wiki http://www.appropedia.org/Category:Food_and_Agriculture and contribute stories to their processes.  Or even why not simply join their effort? They apparently have the GNU FDL culture and so perhaps we might bridge with their existing culture rather than try to create a new one here.  They already have almost 4,000 articles. Why would you want to have a separate wiki if you could be part of their wiki?  Or what is different about the wiki that you envisage that makes it incompatible with what they are doing?
 * You're interested in stories that might relate to stories that we've already found, for example, about the fishermen in Lake Victoria. We will put some resources into that as might most interest you, but especially as you share your personal insight and personal growth through investigation that holds us together.  There are many directions where your leadership can take us.  What different shape might that take at My Food Story and at Origins?
 * We're finding quite a few opportunities for new work that expands on what we've done for you. We already have our first client, professor Christine Ax, who will pay us 100 EUR to collect "shoe stories" in Africa.  Actually, our coordinator for this work will be Surya Rao Maturu in India.  We will find the best village (and the most independent thinking cobblers) in our network and Christine Ax will provide them with a machine for customized local shoe production.  So this is a fantastic outcome of your vision that may be real very soon. New Craft April 14, 2007  Also, I have written a proposal to create a Global Villages Index for Rick Nelson's Solaroof exposition in September, 2007 that might be sponsored by the Shell Foundation / Shell Group.  There are many more such opportunities that relate to food stories in an oblique way.  What is their role with My Food Story and with Origins is important to keep exploring for sustainability.  What opportunities are you finding?

Finally, I note that during these six months that we worked for you, these cultural distinctions didn't come up for us. I mean that I didn't meet anybody who insisted that we use the GNU FDL or Creative Commons. Indeed, very few stories are under copyleft licenses. Indeed, the notion of copyright doesn't exist on-the-ground in Africa or Palestine but there we did try to be clear and get permission to share on the Internet without restriction. What the GNU FDL license does in that case is require that we get their permission to publish their stories under the GNU FDL. They have not seen that license and it's about impossible to explain that license so in practice it's simpler to ask for them to give without reservation, which is the Public Domain. This is to say that material which in practice is in the Public Domain is not being labeled as such, but as GNU FDL. And that means we're losing options in the future. What happens if Origins fails (like so many projects do). Are we going to restrict those who might take over and carry on in their own way? That is not kind, but that is done all the time, and that's one reason there is so little reuse. But we were able to create assets that are free for others to share and take over, both the content and the relationships. And we have not seemed hindered regarding our growth. I imagine that is a source of tension inside me is how do I relate a very real (for me) culture that I have invested myself these last nine years with a hypothetical (for me) culture that as yet has no participants (except for your own first steps). I suppose it would be much more concrete to negotiate a relationship with Appropedia as they and their work are more tangible at this point.

I will add my own selfish reasons which are important here. If I had worked within the culture that you propose here, then at this point I would have nothing that I could build on further. All of the content would be tattoed with the GNU FDL and all of the participants would go their way like water in a cracked pot. I would have no control over the software, I would have no authority over the venue, and I would have no influence on the culture. Instead, we have a pot full of water. Amazingly, all of the content is as free as it could be. The participants are deeply engaged with each other and growing as if they were children. The leaders are free to break away as they might choose and take their groups with them. I have enormous influence as a leader and that is multiplied by the fact that so many other people do likewise. We have accomplished our work but also created a public asset that is outside of the law and outside of the economy. We currently have about 1,000 USD in the field waiting instruction on our next moves for our projects, and Samwel Kongere has another 1,000 USD from Chris Macrae. All of these assets came for free simply by abiding by the culture that I insist for myself. And now people can feel what that means, for example, to have ten workers in ten locations ready to each contribute to ten projects so that they might amplify each other. All of these assets come from what our society dismisses. You have given so much to who we now are that I invite you to please think how we might find ways to support each other even as we cultivate different cultures.

Furthermore, our culture has the advantage of focusing attention on independent thinkers like Steve Bosserman, an agricultural expert of profound experience, so that they and their deepest values are our focal point even during those stretches of time when they are not able to participate. This is also why we have been able to work for you with such minimal guidance and yet be able to bring flesh to so many of your ideas and more. And our culture is enormously shaped by leaders such as you and Steve. I don't see yet how your culture here will allow others to shape the agenda here even when they are not active. I suppose it is too early, but I don't understand how my own concerns as I write can make a difference here, which I suppose is why I am writing.

Greg, you have deep reasons for your decisions and so time will help me understand what they are, and where they are more or less fluid, and how they might challenge us to grow as we have already thanks to you. We have learned a lot that we might digest, for example, that a good part of our work (including about 400 interviews in Palestine or small teams throughout Africa) was on-the-ground and simply not part of the Internet. We had about 100 people help worldwide, about half of whom I don't even know their names. Or we are synergizing with many projects that aren't directly about food or origins so how do we seek to engage them? So much to think about. Thank you for the work you gave us and for your inspiring leadership. AndriusKulikauskas 22:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

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Greg,

Thank you for your reply. I took the liberty to share your letter above because you indicated that you wrote privately for my sake, if I understood correctly.

You understand how many dozens of projects I help with. I want to participate at Origins to the extent that it draws on your own personal growth - as manifest by the questions that you pursue that you don't have the answer to, but wish to answer - and to the extent that it fits within a wider commons. I think all of my points above try to address these two issues, including my suggestions for next steps.

Questions that you are interested in, like what happens to the fish in Lake Victoria, and connections that you might be interested in, like with pandemic flu, solaroof greenhouses, nonviolence, local shoe production, beekeeping and many more would be helpful as I have listed here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/socialagriculture/message/541 and http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors

I think that your copyright policy makes for a poorly constructed asset that places burdens on the wrong people for the wrong purposes, as I have attempted to explain above.

Also, please think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea, that a healthy organization is always part of a wider movement. How can I or others support your movement without participating directly at the Origins wikia? That is also helpful to know.

Also, how will you be participating at My Food Story?

Best wishes,

Andrius