Wikimedia Commons -- Free Art Motherlode

[Josh Roby]

God damn do I love the wikifolk.  When the wikifolk finally buy out Google or the other way around, we will acheive the information apocalypse, I swear.

I found the Wikimedia Commons today.  It's a repository of half a million image files, all free for any use.

I only wish I had time to pore through the site for a few hours or days.

[Bryan Hansel]

Sweet!  I found some nice Commando pictures for PEQ, which I can't figure out the license.  One of the images is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commando_jauber1.jpg

Can anyone translate the license to plain english?

[jerry]

Sweet!  I found some nice Commando pictures for PEQ, which I can't figure out the license.  One of the images is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commando_jauber1.jpg

Can anyone translate the license to plain english?

There is a license called the "Free Documentation License", which they link to. You need to follow the restrictions of that license if you wish to use the image.

The license itself is relatively short for an open source license (although I'd prefer it be shorter), but it's basically your standard open source license: if your use of the image would otherwise be a copyright violation, the work you use it in needs to be released under the Gnu Free Documentation License.

The license allows anybody else to also use your work, provided that they also follow the restrictions of the Gnu Free Documentation License.

On your part, you are required to make your work available in a "transparent" format, that is, one which is a standard format that is easily implemented by computer programmers, and which is easily editable in standard text editors. When I publish Gnu FDL texts, I prefer to use HTML for this format (although I also publish as RTF and PDF); eventually, I expect XML to take over as my preferred format.

You will, of course, want to read the license to understand the requirements of the license.

Jerry

[Nathan P.]

Very cool. Still check each individual copyright notice though - many of them are for use only as long as you give your derivation or use the same open license, which you may or may not want to do.

[Jason Morningstar]

Sweet!  I found some nice Commando pictures for PEQ, which I can't figure out the license.  One of the images is here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Commando_jauber1.jpg

If you need chest-bumping commando images, the United States armed forces have big collections of same, and all of it is in the public domain and super high-resolution.  For example, here's a picture of some guy getting ready to blow some shit up.  Here's a HALO jumper. 

[Bryan Hansel]

Holy Cow!  There are tons and tons of cool and free military images on the government sites.  Sweet!

I just found an image of a friend of mine!!!  http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/031022-F-2185G-001.jpg  He's getting ready to blow some shit up!  Here's the blurb:

TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq -- Tech. Sgt. David Featherstun lines up Soviet, O-832 DU, 82 mm, high-explosive filled mortars for demolition. Featherstun is part of the 332nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron's explosive ordnance disposal flight here. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Karolina Gmyrek)