User talk:Rugby471/Archives/2007/March

Windows Vista image

Hi... the issue of images of copyrighted (i.e. non-free) stuff on Wikipedia is pretty tricky territory. We have a Wikipedia:Fair use policy which explains all this in more detail, but here's the short short version: Our goal as editors is to do our best to present the topic while using as little "non-free" content as possible. This means that we write our own prose, and take our own pictures (and screenshots) instead of copying them from other sources. In our articles about Microsoft Windows (as well as Mac OS X), we have to be especially careful to limit our use of copyrighted materials such as screenshots and logos to the absolute minimum. When we do, it has to be directly beside some prose that articulates what is in the screenshot.

In the case of your image, it contains box-shots and logos for Windows Vista, but the actual discussion of the individual editions takes place elsewhere -- Windows Vista editions and pricing. We already have the box shots in that article, and ideally we will be able to replace all those copyrighted images with free images.

I hope that makes some sense... yeah, this is a pain in the rear, and I really don't want you to feel like your contributions aren't welcome, because they are!! We just need to work within the constraints imposed by Wikipedia so that we keep working towards our goal of making an amazing free' encyclopedia. -/- Warren 01:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)