7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

Wiki: free
software
Free content
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natural limitations to be surmounted. Humans built utilities that enable
them to better control nature and humankind, in every sense of
the word. Thus, perspectives have opened up. Relationships have
become identifiable and the future plannable. The liberating power
of technology could also transform into chains of liberation and into
the instrumentalization of humans. This predicament has become
known as the dual use problem.
In summary, we can say that for the assessment of whether a tool
has any socially beneficial effects depends, firstly, on the question of
which goals its creation was based upon and with which goals it is
used; secondly, this must be seen before the backdrop of the extent
to which social circumstances are cemented or accordingly changed.
This also applies to wikis.
22.2.2
Ownership
A hot topic, not only for the wiki community, is the significance of
licenses and free software. Generally, digitalization and the world
wide web as a world wide copy machine have rekindled the fundamental
debate on the role and function of ownership, primarily that
of intellectual property (copyright, patents, trademark protection).
The wiki communities also needed to face this issue, for the simple
fact that, with the publication of wiki software and every further
wiki clone, a fundamental decision regarding their conditions for use
had to be made. Does a legal entity have the right to appropriate the
software or parts of the software, and for what purposes? Many
wikis today are subject to GNU-GPL regulations, and are thus free
software programs that may not be sold. 14 Thus, wiki programmers
are among the defenders of free software.
However, we are confronted with exploitation rights not only
with regard to software, but also to the content level of wiki pages. 15
To whom do the texts and images belong? When is a text a text?
Who is legally responsible? Research into whether image material is
part of the public domain is a very time-consuming effort at Wikipedia.
After all, the site strives to guarantee that Wikipedia truly remains
a “free content” encyclopedia. This means that it supports a
copyright which allows anyone to copy, alter or otherwise use text
14 We already discussed licensing in Chapter 1.5.2. The best introduction to
the history and issues of free software is provided by Grassmuck 2002.
15 See Möller 2005, 171f.
22 Tools with a Future? Technical and Social Outlook with Wikis