2008/10/18 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: Two issues have been revisited in the past couple of months, which in the first case came as a surprise to us. But both sides seem happy and prepared to go forward at this point. I don't believe the FSF plans to publish any new draft prior to release. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: The FSF has published a draft of a GFDL V2 and a simplified GFDL here a couple of years ago: http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html The GFDL 1.3 they have proposed to us is, AFAICT, a verbatim copy of the GFDL 1.2 with a single additional section on re-licensing. The GFDL V2 draft is a very significant evolution of the GFDL. The re-licensing section is the part that the FSF is somewhat protective of, as per earlier discussions on this list. However, the discussions of the past few months have circled exactly around the issues that we considered potentially problematic for adoption by us and by others, so I hope that we will have been able to accommodate most concerns that could potentially arise. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>om>: Which terms are you referring to here, Gregory? -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>om>: Because CC has tried to address some of the concerns and objections, it would be good to know what you perceive as the key remaining issues. I've found CC generally to be very responsive and open to the needs of the Wikimedia community. While the release of the FDL 1.3 is an important step in a process, it's not the end of that process. Please see the original resolution by the Board last year on the licensing change: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/wiki/Resolution:License_u… "It is hereby resolved that: * The Foundation requests that the GNU Free Documentation License be modified in the fashion proposed by the FSF to allow migration by mass collaborative projects to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license; * Upon the announcement of that relicensing, the Foundation will initiate a process of community discussion and voting before making a final decision on relicensing." This continues to be the plan. We do believe we've found a potential compromise with regard to future use of the FDL, which is part of what the FSF and WMF have been working on recently. Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: Please don't make assumptions based on drafts from two years ago. If WMF does not choose to re-license content on Wikimedia's sites to CC-BY-SA, there are limitations in place in the current re-licensing language to prevent others from doing so. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh(a)gmail.com>om>: It's not our preference, yes. There are two complicating factors here: * We have no control over the text of the FDL 1.3. The Free Software Foundation is the only organization who can exercise that control. They have gracefully agreed to work with us in meeting our needs. * The Free Documentation License, as its name implies, was developed for software documentation, not for wikis. (That's what's been causing many licensing related headaches in the first place.) It continues to be used for software documentation. The Free Software Foundation wants to protect and support that legitimate use. The approach the FSF has taken is to focus on a simple FDL 1.3 release, which essentially answers our request for a migration strategy. But in order to meet its own needs for the FDL, it has decided that a fully open development process for the licensing terms exposes it to unacceptable risks in protecting the interests of the free software community. We understand that decision, and we've worked within that constraint. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Erik Moeller wrote: I am sorry, I know I am certainly the last person who would have a right to grumble... But seriously, I am simply failing to parse that sentence; and somehow I suspect there is something significant behind it. Could someone forego the flip responses, and rephrase it in a fashion that would clarify the thinking behind that sentence? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

2008/10/18 Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>rg>: Does the section deal with the difference between content originate on wikipedia and GFDL content original hosted elsewhere? -- geni

2008/10/19 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: It generally speaks of content previously published elsewhere; it doesn't make specific reference to Wikipedia or Wikimedia anywhere. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: The actual text of the GFDL and CC-BY-SA is not substantially different with regard to the copyleft of adaptations. The official position of Creative Commons on this issue is reflected in the statement of intent regarding the CC-BY-SA license: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_Attribution-ShareAlike_Intent I don't think there's any basis on which to argue that Creative Commons Intent is substantially different from the FSF's with the GFDL, and this statement explicitly promises that CC-BY-SA will never be re-worded to have a "softer" copyleft. That said, we've been continuing the dialog with CC about how to build a more explicit hard copyleft. I strongly believe that a strong copyleft option for photography needs to exist, but to me, this is a separate problem. The GFDL doesn't solve this, and as has been pointed out here before, the current beliefs and practices (some people believe that combinations of any kind need to be copyleft, but we mix GFDL text with content under different licenses) are inherently contradictory. A solution addressing this problem explicitly is needed. Creative Commons is not at all opposed to such a solution. My preferred "fix" at this point is a CC-BY-SA 3.1 version which explicitly invokes copyleft for scenarios of semantic embedding, but where copyleft is taken to mean "combine with a work under any license that's compliant with the Definition of Free Cultural Works", as opposed to "the exact same license". I don't see how this relates to the re-licensing language in GFDL 1.3. Whether or not we want to continue using "GFDL 1.2 only" content is a separate decision. Partially, this seems to be a debate for the Commons community about whether GFDL 1.2 only is "free enough", given the encumbrances you mention. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/18 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: Given that the _substance_ of the actual legal text is essentially the same, we're talking here about the interpretations of very similar legal language. Before CC put out this statement, critics argued that adopting CC-BY-SA could put you at risk, because CC might openly adopt positions or add clarifications that weaken your position. And in that context, the CC statement is key. It includes commitments such as: "Any clarification of whether a use constitutes an adaptation for the purposes of Attribution-ShareAlike licenses may only broaden the scope of uses considered adaptations rather than collections." If there is still a case to be made that adopting CC-BY-SA puts you in a substantially worse position than adopting GFDL if your aim is to protect your work with strong copyleft, I'd be really interested in a thorough argument to that effect. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2008/10/19 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: The CC have the advantage of being present and active on our mailing lists. Yes, if you ever ask them about their licenses they answer "Reply hazy, try again later, ask your attorney." Saying "our attorney is Mike Godwin and your license makes his head hurt" doesn't seem to affect this. - d.

2008/10/18 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: This argument implies that the GFDL is any more a strong copyleft license than CC-BY-SA is. I see no reason to assume that is the case. Yes, we need to work towards a good solution for strong copyleft on embedded media. CC appears to me to be more logically positioned to help us solve this problem, because it fits much more neatly in their mission focus (helping creators of media of all types) than in the FSF's (supporting free software), and because their license release cycles tend to be significantly shorter than the FSF's. Of course you can argue that the CC approach in _general_ has a bias against freedom and a bias in favor of restrictions. I think that's a completely legitimate argument, and I would love to see CC become more proactive in supporting freedom. Their explicit designation of CC-BY and CC-BY-SA as Free Cultural Works licenses (with a link to the definition) is an important step in that direction, and I do know from my personal interactions with CC that there are people in the organization that would like CC to be more actively promoting the free licenses over the non-free ones. Becoming more closely involved with CC is a great way for us to become an important voice for freedom. For example, I think we can successfully promote a view that non-free licenses are inappropriate for collaborative communities. But irrespective of that, CC has no incentive _not_ to help us solve the strong copyleft problem: even when viewed as a purely pragmatic organization, it fits completely within their mission scope to solve problems like this one. Whether that solution should consist of modifying CC-BY-SA itself is, in my opinion, legitimately debatable, though as I said, it seems to be the simplest solution and reduces license proliferation, which CC is explicitly opposed to at this point. What I do not agree with is the notion that GFDL somehow represents an actual solution to the problem. That understates the massive problems associated with reuse of GFDL licensed electronic documents and compatibility with CC-BY-SA resources, it quietly ignores the inherent contradiction in a strong copyleft interpretation of the GFDL, and it overstates the significance of weakly varying interpretations of essentially equivalent legal texts. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: It's based on community consensus. See http://freedomdefined.org/Authoring_process Angela

I hope no one seeriously consider using that site for defining what writers on Wikipedia means about free cultural works. If so, then someone should think through very carefully how the comunity operates and how it will react on something like this. John Anthony skrev:

2008/10/19 John at Darkstar <vacuum(a)jeb.no>no>: I think you're about eighteen months late in saying so: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy Of course, some of "the community" have ideas on what licenses mean that are frankly on crack. We've had people make admin on en:wp without understanding that GFDL works they create can be used outside Wikimedia. - d.

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Is that sarcasm, or do you really think it doesn't matter that licensing policy isn't being followed?

That you request a possible mgration does not solve the real issue, you can't relicense content you do not own. I tried to get a clear answare in the past if such a relicensing is considered a single sided renegotiation of a contract, and given the described scenario, ie relicensing of the Wikimedia projects, very few in Noraway are willing to bet on the legalty of the project. The only one I've found are someone deeply involved in Creative Commons, and one other person that guessed it might be legal if the contributors was given the opportunity to opt out. Note that if one contributor opts out then all later revisions has to be purged. Note also that in Norway the law explicitly states that the authors are to be given credit, and this isn't something they can release any publisher from doing. One person I've asked said it like this; you can use a non-by attribution license but still the publisher has to give you credit. Right now we tell the newspapers to give credit to "Wikipedia" but this is in fact a little bit fishy, but it is the best we can do given the present code - we can't tell them exactly who wrote the content. Note also that the problem isn't really much easier when we have to deal with "main authors" and "minor authors". My guess is that such a relicensing isn't legal in Norway. John Erik Moeller skrev:

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 12:42 PM, John at Darkstar <vacuum(a)jeb.no> wrote: The whole concept is rather sketchy, but the powers that be seem to want to give it a try anyway. I'm not sure I blame them, since GFDL 1.2 isn't being followed anyway. Under the draft text one possibility would have been to not relicense the content but to require new contributors to dual-license their contributions, and let third parties use the content under CC at their own risk. Not sure if that strategy would be possible under the new 1.3 or not. That's certainly not true under US copyright law, though many people think it is. One of them will probably reply to this post telling me I'm wrong, at which point I'm going to ignore them. So don't consider my silence as acquiescence. Anthony