Using a template on each page is a step in the right direction, but it is still questionable whether that is acceptable legally. /Assuming it is/, other issues arise. What if we want to move a page into the book? That page is not dual-licensed (or maybe & this is what Andrew was getting at -- licensed in some totally different way) and so ruins the dual licensing for the whole book. Furthermore, Wikibooks is openly advertised as being GFDL(-only) - mediawiki.org is openly advertised as having a PD Help: namespace. For them, the problems raised by moving content around isn't really relevant, as the help pages stand alone. But for us, it raises huge logistical concerns.
My biggest problem here is that we cannot force anyone to license their work under anything but the GFDL. So if someone doesn't want to also use cc-by-sa or PD or whatever, we can't say "Then you may not contribute to this book"
Wikibooks is for GFDL-licensed textbooks - I understand the rationale for expanding that, but I think it may cause more problems than it solves. That said, I'd love to see effort put into methods of doing this properly (ie not repeating the probably-invalid attempts of the past)
Mike
-----Original Message----- From: textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brianna Laugher Sent: August 14, 2008 11:06 PM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Dual-licensed wikibooks
Hm...
I recently took part in a FLOSS Manuals Inkscape documentation booksprint. Since my Inkscape knowledge is nothing special, I wrote a guide to contributing to Wikimedia Commons, in theory the manual being for people who were already familiar with Inkscape but not Wikimedia. http://en.flossmanuals.net/wikimediacommons
FLOSS Manuals is by default GPL. I asked for this manual to be dual-licensed with the GFDL so that its contents could be copied to a Wikimedia wiki if desired.
I was thinking I should copy the whole thing to Wikibooks as a book, but I wouldn't want to do that if the content couldn't be fed back into FLOSS Manuals (which has a wiki-to-print process that actually works, *now*).
GFDL did not win the free license race. It seems to me if you cut off dual licensing you are cutting off a lot of potential partnerships.
Is it so bad if you just put a template on each page of the book stating its dual license? This is what http://mediawiki.org does, which has a namespace of help docs which are PD, and intended to be exported with every wiki. All the rest is GFDL which just stays at mediawiki.org. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:PD_Help_Page
cheers Brianna [[user:pfctdayelise]]