Build and they will come - the wallpaper gallery
It may be a bit early for that, but our Fedora Extras Wallpaper Gallery is starting to look like a success story. And not necessarily because in a few days we gathered an important number of images or because that some of those are not bad at all, the most important part is, I think, that we provide a new and easy way to contribute.
Some people may want to contribute somehow, but they are not coders so can't involve in development, are not good English writers to contribute to documentation, have no large experience with graphic software and are afraid to contribute to Art and so on, or just maybe not enough free time.
This is why contributing wallpapers is important: a very low barrier to entry for occasional contributors, you need only a Fedora account. And as it shows, it really works, you have only to build the infrastructure and the contributors will come: we had a number of new contributors showing.
Of course, there is a second part, which is harder: grow the contributors so they feel comfortable and do more and more (unlike now, when we look like in a small impasse in the Art team, with everybody, me included, shy about the second round).
If they will see their work used will grow in confidence, will become in time more familiar with the tools and the community and will do more.
Posts
Cannot find two essential categories among ones - Girlz and Lolcats. :(
ReplyDeleteProbably because the initial categories were just suggestion and nobody uploaded yet any of those.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be interesting to see what happens if someone do... Note that the large majority of women wallpapers posted on the net are copyright infringement, so such an image will be deleted on the spot but I have no idea (and currently don't want to try myself) what happens if the image is legit from a licensing point of view.
Heh! I'll bet if someone will upload any "Girlz" wallpaper, (s)he will be cursed and unchurched by anti-upskirt inquisitors :)
ReplyDeleteThink about that: if the "girlz" wallpaper is made "by the book", with a signed model release form? Then the only complain which can be made is "I do not like seeing skin". Further, it can be a photo which does not even show that much skin.
ReplyDeleteHow about copying the content from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wallpaper ?
ReplyDeleteWhoops, I meant this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_wallpaper .
ReplyDeleteI see no point in that, if some end user want those images, they are available on Wikimedia, why keep a duplicate?
ReplyDeleteI see as a much better goal to contribute original content.
You might want to mention how someone might contribute.
ReplyDeleteThe existing uploads aren't exactly awesome quality and I would love to help you out with offering up pretty much the entirety of my Flickr account depending on license options. I would not want to permit commercial use for advertising, for instance.
http://flickr.com/photos/mpdehaan/sets/456366/
@michael: I believe the part about how one can contribute should be explained in the gallery itself. I also how the wiki is only an intermediate solution and we will migrate to something better.
ReplyDeleteAs for license, it was agreed we are going with CC-BY-SA, so a selected number of images can pe packaged for the distro (NC is, AFAIK, not accepted for including into Fedora).
CC-BY-SA would be acceptable, since the "SA" is there it at least ensures the content remains freely usable.
ReplyDeleteI still don't see how to submit things when I look at the page you linked. Could you add instructions?
'Free' (as in freedom) and NC don't work together. Therefore NC and Fedora do neither.
ReplyDelete'Free' licenses can't exclude commercial or military use or they're not really free.
red_alert, that's a popular misconception.
ReplyDeleteEssentially the problem is that GPL like rights are not easily enforced by the Creative Commands. "SA" is close but still allows abuses. "NC" does not say that someone can't use a photo in a business, it means they can't use the photo content in an ad campaign or for a for-profit billboard.
This is very much like the need for an Affero GPL in certain applications as the concept of software licensing doesn't apply 1:1 with media.
While I get paid to do software development, no one is paying us X thousands of dollars for our photo gear and time. So, making sure that content doesn't get exploited is important. So there is an interest in seeing GPL like freedom instead of BSD like freedom, and because media and software are quite different entities, they cannot be dealt with in exactly the same way.
It's easy to build software business models around support, consulting, etc on free software ... building a business model around free media, not so much. Naturally Fedora is not a business so "SA" gets pretty close.
However, calling "NC" not "Free" is only partially correct. It's free for nearly all purposes. Read the license.
I added a few words about uploading. The problem is that wile we are still stuck with a wiki the process is not very smooth: the files have to be uploaded as any other wiki attachment and then manually included in the gallery. This require a minimal MediaWiki knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIANAL and also not comfortable in reading long legal stuff in English, but I believe the most people interpret NC as "something which is sold".
ReplyDeleteThere is an example on the Creative Commons site "Gus publishes his photograph on his website with a Noncommercial license. Camille prints Gus’ photograph. Camille is not allowed to sell the print photograph without Gus’s permission."
That example is more like can't use it on a business than can't use it on a billboard.
One tricky case I can see with NC is this: someone sells Fedora install DVDs with a profit of 1$/piece. I believe this is against the NC clause.
That is probably true. DVD distribution may complicate that.
ReplyDeleteThat really wasn't so much my concern as usage in advertising, where typically one time rights usage can be worth several hundred dollars or more.
Not that I typically get to license a lot of stuff (I don't), but it gives folks a free resource to plunder.
I think you should find a way to make the talk page editable by anonymous users so that comments/suggestions/requests can easily be made there. That might help those who don't want to or can't make wallpaper, but want to make a suggestion.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think you guys should include all the default wallpaper from the previous versions of Fedora. I've been looking for the FC4 default wallpaper, and haven't found it yet. (FC4 was my first full-time distro so I'm a bit nostalgic toward it.)