Gratis & Libre: Wikipedia’s role in free and open history production and dissemination

ABSTRACT

Wikipedia is by definition an encyclopedia, and the universal scope and availability it promises are ideals-in the pursuit of worldwide access to information. The history of literary production is equally the history of censorship, knowledge suppression, preservation, and material circulation. While widely accessed online sources might appear to have moved beyond these issues, they are in fact part of this complex balance between freedom and restriction. Therefore, it is useful to consider Wikipedia in terms other than as a website-as a library, as a dictionary, as an archive, as a book. In this light, we see that Wikipedia has many precedents in the history of knowledge dissemination and preservation, precedents as diverse as the Library of Alexandria, the Oxford English Dictionary or the Bible. Wikipedia is so different from what has gone before in any one field but so similar to what has happened in different aspects of many fields. This paper discusses how the idea of “free” is related to the production and dissemination of knowledge by looking at methods by which knowledge has historically been curtailed-through copyright; censorship; destruction; price; and language. Wikipedia is the latest in a long line of defenders of the ideal of free knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Wikipedia
• online censorship
• historiography
• free knowledge
• copyright

Disclosure statement

At the time of publication the author was employed by the Wikimedia Foundation. However, the research, writing, and submission of this paper all occurred before that time.

Notes

1 This analogy, widely quoted, appears to have originated From Richard Stallman’s GNU project. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

2 Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the American constitution (known as the “copyright clause” or “the progressive clause”) states: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This clause is notable in its specific linking of cause and effect—the limited time of exclusive rights for the specific purpose of progress of the society in general. Ochoa & Rose, “Anti- monopoly origins of the patent and copyright clause”, 2001.