I am sorry, Pieter, I do understand your reasons for changing/limiting the license of free sites (and I agree with this decision, I repeat, just in case I wasn't clear enough), but I still do not understand why it is not possible to have two licenses: one for the software (or thechnical part of the site, call it whatever you want) and other for the content (sole property of the owner of the site). I don't see any difficulty in placing somewhere where it will be visible:

1. Wikidot software used in this site is FREE license. Anything derived from it is also under FREE licence
2. Content that you put can be under any CC license you want to chose.

I am sure those two guys that complained about the licence (one said he would delete his Wikidot site due to the license), would not do it if they were explained that they can put the contents of their sites under the license they want.

On the other hand, I think that you should work on that cloning, so when the site is cloned, no content could be cloned.

And here's another rant from me: Info on Wikidot is not duly updated. If you make some change in rules, or in price, or whatever that has consequences, then you should immediately update the info on it. First it was about the price. December 17th was long ago behind us, and you still had the price of 24,90 dollars on control panels of free accounts. Now this about the license. It gives a very bad impression in public. Of course, if you don't mind… Then forget about this rant.

On the other hand, I think that you should work on that cloning, so when the site is cloned, no content could be cloned.

I can see why that might be impossible, and a pointless exercise. but…..

Have i got this right.?
this:-

So the simplest solution is to force free sites to a share-alike

has been implemented because you don't want "wikidot code" to be licensed?

Me: On the other hand, I think that you should work on that cloning, so when the site is cloned, no content could be cloned.

Phil: I can see why that might be impossible, and a pointless exercise. but…..

As a matter of fact, it is not so important to make that the cloning process clones only the source, avoiding the contents, the content can be copy-pasted anyway.
The important thing is just the existence of the possibility for a site owner to determine the license of the site content.

On the other hand, re-reading Pieter's post, I find this:

There is no consequence of the license Wikidot.com uses on its software, on content written and held on sites running on that software.

Does this mean that the license that is forced to free sites does not refer to the content of the site, but only to the source/software? If this is the case, then I don't have any complaints anymore, except that it should be clearly stated, so that the new people don't go away because they think that they cannot protect the contents they want to put in the site.

I'll try to clean up this confusion again.

• The licensing of Wikidot's source code (the software we write here) has no consequence on the license policies of sites.
• It is not possible to cleanly clone only site structure and not site content. Yes, we could clone only _templates but what about include pages etc.?
• Anyone can copy/paste content anyhow, it's not Wikidot's job to police copying.
• Yes, we should update the ToS. Sorry for the delay in doing that, it requires more than an edit, but an email to all existing users and the choice of opting out.
• It is meaningless to speak of "source/software" with respect to a site.

Any site except one developed totally from zero has content with many authors. No matter what the license a site admin uses for their content, they must respect the license on any material they reuse, including snippets, CSS themes, CSIs, packages, and template sites. This complex requirement is easiest solved by applying the same CC license to the site as was used for the original content.

So encouraging sites to use the 'standard' CC license is actually simpler for most people. Offering a choice of random CC licenses does not help because they are not necessarily compatible. I.e. you cannot take CC-BY-SA content and relicense it under CC-SA. The only reliable path is to stick to one CC license down the line, as we do now.

I'm not saying the current scheme is perfect. Lawyers will find problems with it. For example, CC-licensed content is often not properly attributed as it should be. Many sites take CC-licensed content and 'close it'. The original authors could complain about that. Most sites also have vague rules about who owns contributions, and who owns the combined work. We cleaned this up in the Legal section of the Iron Giant templates.

OK, as I already said, I do understand why you did what you did, and I really approve it, there is no need to explain why you did it, really. But I still haven't got the clear answer to my question — if the content is a sole product of site owner(s), then he (they) have the right to put any license they want, right? Let's take my site as an example. All the source and everything in it as far as the software is concerned, is under free license. BUT, all my texts are mine and of my two collaborators (it is our work, we did not copy it from anywhere, nor used other texts to make them. The texts are original work and each has the list of bibliography and many of them even references), therefore we can put any license we want, right?

Any site except one developed totally from zero has content with many authors. No matter what the license a site admin uses for their content, they must respect the license on any material they reuse, including snippets, CSS themes, CSIs, packages, and template sites. This complex requirement is easiest solved by applying the same CC license to the site as was used for the original content.

You keep on talking about the source, and I am interested only in content meaning TEXT. Let's try an example:

If I had a free site, then could I indicate somewhere that my texts have other license, explaining that the free license refers only to software (including snippets, CSS themes, CSIs, packages, and template sites)?

If yes, I do think that this should be indicated in ToS, Rules, or somewhere, since I am convinced that people think that the free license refers both to the source and to the content. As a matter of fact, I even think that most of them don't even think of the source, and they reject Wikidot thinking that they are forced to put the content under the free license…

you mean, in the source, i only have to put the url of the site I want to clone?

Not the URL but the "site_name", i.e. blog for this blog.

Wow. This is very dangerous tool. It would be better if we could clone sites that are not Wikidot. For example, if someone has a site and wants to pass it to Wikidot. This would be useful tool, which would generate more users, for sure…

Hi Brunhilda.

I tried to clone one of my sites a while back, and I got a message saying that it couldn't be cloned because it had more than 100 pages, so probably no-one will be able to clone your site.

Other than that, I think the cloning tool is an excellent tool, because reinforces the whole idea of the creative commons sharealike licence, and reminds you that wikis are about openly and freely sharing information and knowledge.

The idea of gifting your work to others so that they can improve it and make the world a better place is a dangerous (but good) idea. A tool is just a tool.

Well we can discuss about it, indeed, and you are right. The cloning is a wonderful tool, but in wrong hands it can be dangerous one. But, if we do here, I am afraid we would go too much off topic… :)

Well, this is supposed to be Tusday Rant, so I was ranting, Rob… :P

Unlike you, I do mind having to type the codes (as a matter of fact, I do not type anything unless is absolutely necesary, therefore I am writing this in brackets instead of putting a footnote, for example), and I was wondering if there is some good reason for having two versions of editor toolbar…

I was wondering if there is some good reason for having two versions of editor toolbar…

It's not about versions, but custom CSS:

Look for "Strip down editor UI" in http://blog.wikidot.com/admin:themes.

EDIT
What you can do:

• get Stylish addons for Firefox
• apply your own CSS to revert to the editor defaults:

@-moz-document domain("blog.wikidot.com") {
#wd-editor-toolbar-panel div + div { display: block!important; }
#np-editor-panel div + div { display: block!important;}
#edit-diff-button { display: block!important; }
}

… and this one to merge row of buttons 1 & 2 …

@-moz-document domain("blog.wikidot.com") {
#wd-editor-toolbar-panel div + div { display: block!important; margin-top:-30px !important;}
#np-editor-panel div + div { display: block!important; margin-top:-30px !important;}

Thanks, Gerdami, I understand now. But I think that the election of buttons to leave are a little bit strange… Why would anyone want to remove code buttons, photo buttons, table buttons etc… and leave superscript and underscript?

apply your own CSS to revert to the editor defaults:

I cannot do this to any site that is not mine, can I?

get Stylish addons for Firefox

Hm, I am not sure I know what are you talking about, although I suspect this could be solution to my problem…

Yes you can apply your own CSS to any website, but only your FF browser will be affected - it's a "client-side" solution. I use it for example to not display (to my eyes) forum signatures…

Really???? BTW, I thought that the option to remove forum signatures is a Pro feature…

May I ask you how can I do this? Where should I put this part of CSS to have all Wikidot comments with all buttons?

I already told you: get Stylish addons at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Restart FF.
You will see a S icon at the bottom right of your browser.
Visit any page, example FT.com
Click on the S icon and "Write new style for … "
- for this URL
- for this subdomain
- for this domain

… and type the FT's CSS code you want to be modified (just for you).

Sorry, i got the impression that
* get Stylish addons for Firefox
* apply your own CSS to revert to the editor defaults:

are two different things. Thanks, gerdami. I'll try to install it.