Brian McNeil wrote:
I agree completely, there would be a lot of work putting templates in the right places. For Wikinews every article written before the changeover had to have a template added.
Assuming Wikibooks were to say they wanted to change license you'd have a big project on your hands because people wouldn't want their GFDL stuff to become frozen in time and cease being edited. If they accepted the reasons for the license change you'd be rewriting your books to put them under the new license.
Wikibooks could make a switch, but it would be a real challenge. I can imagine having some pages started before the cut off having warning templates that contributions are GFDL but there's a start-from-scratch-and-rewrite version under CC-BY-2.5 [[here]]. Tricky judgement call on when you switch the main article with the sub-page and move to a template that says "This book is CC-BY-2.5, an older version under the GFDL license is available [[here]]." This may sound overly complex, but in line with Wiki philosophy I hate seeing useful information destroyed.
Of course, I am unaware of any drive within Wikibooks to change the license. I guess what I and several other people on the list are saying it is they are the only obvious case that could pull the same move as Wikinews. And yes, it would be a disruptive, difficult and messy period for the project.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Gray Sent: 21 November 2007 13:34 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Citizendium License (Was: [EWW] EditWikipediaWeek)
On 21/11/2007, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
Were you, for example, to want to go that way with Wikibooks you'd need to say, okay cut-off is <date-A>, and every book started before that gets a template added saying it was started before <date-A>, thus remains under
the
GFDL.
I can't see any way to do that on Wikipedia where virtually every article
is
treated as a work in progress.
Quite - even were you to try saying "all articles created after Date X are License A, all articles created before are License B", you'd immediately run into trouble with people wanting to merge or transfer material across.
It really depends on how granular the projects are - how much each page or group of pages stands on their own. It seems like this ought to be workable for Wikibooks, to deem that this book is CC-BY and that one GFDL...
...*but* even if it is theoretically practical, it's going to be a hellishly big headache to administrate!
Licenses are really something that needs to be established on a project-wide level, I fear.
Let me push the thing a step further Brian
Imagine that there is already a book somewhere, under a regular copyright. And the copyright holder is willing to have this book published on Wikibooks, because he thinks it is a cool idea, because he wants the book to be under a free license, because he wants to be the book to be regularly updated and so on.
Does the current situation mean that this person has to mandatorily relicense the book under GFDL, a license we notoriously know as problematic, whilst other licenses may be more suitable now ? Does he have the possibility to relicense it under a dual gfdl/CC-by-sa licence ? What are the implications in Wikibooks today ?
Ant
The discussion on Wikibooks is not to use License A or License B, but instead to use License A or License A & B. We do mandate that all books be released under the GFDL, we are wondering if there is the possibilities for some books to additionally cross-license with CC-BY-SA-xx. The ramifications are: 1) if the book is on Wikibooks, all future edits must be cross-licensed accordingly 2) If the book content is merged in to another book on Wikibooks that is GFDL-only, it can be taken as GFDL. 3) if an editor wants to use the book under CC-BY-SA-xx only, he would have to fork the book to another location In lieu of a project-wide licensing scheme, maybe something like a new namespace could be created that would exclusively house books that are cross-licensed? It would be trivial to change the copyright warning on the edit page to show a different licensing message in different namespaces.
Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
--Andrew Whitworth
Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
i think that pressure is already being felt with the Free Software Foundations draft the new FDL and SFDL http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html http://gplv3.fsf.org/sfdl-draft-2006-09-26.html
As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on Wikibooks?
adam
--Andrew Whitworth
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on Wikibooks?
No, we havent ever stopped somebody from creating a book under these dual-licensing schemes. Part of it was, I think, due to our own misunderstandings of intricacies of the various licenses. To date, however, there have only been a handful of books that have been licensed in this manner. The issue has been raised most recently because a contributor at Wikibooks wants to re-license a particular book that was created from scratch on wikibooks. Since the contributor himself is the only contributor to the book (or he has received explicit permission from all other contributors). it should be possible to relicense the content. What is not certain about that situation, however, is whether wikibooks can continue to host the book if the license changes (or if the book would need to be forked to a new host).
Dual-licensing most often when people donate books to wikibooks, and want them to be released under very free licenses. Because the books tend to be mostly complete when they are donated, they are frequently not edited (much) except for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. There is, of course, no rule that these books cannot be edited nor modified more aggressively.
If we decide that the dual-licensing of these existing books is a problem, a template could easily be employed that says "This book is released under the GFDL, but a previous revision of this book is also cross-licensed under license X" That way, we can continue development as usual, but the material can be forked from a known "safe" point.
--Andrew Whitworth
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on Wikibooks?
No, we havent ever stopped somebody from creating a book under these dual-licensing schemes. Part of it was, I think, due to our own misunderstandings of intricacies of the various licenses. To date, however, there have only been a handful of books that have been licensed in this manner. The issue has been raised most recently because a contributor at Wikibooks wants to re-license a particular book that was created from scratch on wikibooks. Since the contributor himself is the only contributor to the book (or he has received explicit permission from all other contributors). it should be possible to relicense the content. What is not certain about that situation, however, is whether wikibooks can continue to host the book if the license changes (or if the book would need to be forked to a new host).
Dual-licensing most often when people donate books to wikibooks, and want them to be released under very free licenses. Because the books tend to be mostly complete when they are donated, they are frequently not edited (much) except for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. There is, of course, no rule that these books cannot be edited nor modified more aggressively.
If we decide that the dual-licensing of these existing books is a problem, a template could easily be employed that says "This book is released under the GFDL, but a previous revision of this book is also cross-licensed under license X" That way, we can continue development as usual, but the material can be forked from a known "safe" point.
--Andrew Whitworth
I tend to get confused between real names and pseudos :-) Does any of you go along the pseudo SBJohnny or Whiteknight ?
Ant
I am Whiteknight, i use that and my real name so interchangably, that I get confused myself :).
--Andrew Whitworth
adam hyde wrote:
Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
i think that pressure is already being felt with the Free Software Foundations draft the new FDL and SFDL http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html http://gplv3.fsf.org/sfdl-draft-2006-09-26.html
As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on Wikibooks?
adam
I'll give a concrete rather than a hypothetical example:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scratch/Content_License
This is simultaneously licensed under both the GFDL and the Creative Commons Share Alike license. The page explains the reasons (for compatability with other websites where the content may be "forked" or moved at some point in the future.... or at least shared).
I brought this issue up a couple of times in the Staff Lounge (now Reading Room) and as can be seen from the overwhelming response on the discussion area of the above Wikibooks page, it is hardly what could be called a controversial decision. But then again it isn't that big of a Wikibook that has made a huge splash in the Wikibooks world, much less among Wikimedia projects.
As I pointed out in the reading room, the worst issue that comes from a dual-licensed Wikibook is mainly an issue of forking, where another website (or other publisher...it doesn't have to be a website) that does not allow (or chooses to ignore) the GFDL in any form can publish the book, this particular book, under the second license terms. In that case, any changes made in the other content format won't be added back to the Wikibooks site, nor if the GFDL license is ignored or purposely left out in the fork can anybody who has the content know that a GFDL version is available. For purists about the GPL and GFDL like Richard Stallman, this would be a huge issue. Also note that the GFDL is intentionally written to avoid this sort of issue, but it isn't illegal as long as all of the participants know about how the content is licensed ahead of time.
In the case of this book about Scratch, the dual-licensing format was set up when the Wikibook was established. This is not something that can be done after a large number of people, particularly anonymous contributors, start adding content.
The worst situation I saw was with the Strategy Wiki (http://strategywiki.org/) when they "took over" the editing of the gaming guides on Wikibooks. The participants of that website were disenchanted (to put it mildly) with the GFDL, and wanted to re-license all of the content to a Creative Commons license. Specifically to the point, they wanted to put up some sort of licensing regime that kept the GFDL for all of the older content (much of which was originally on Wikibooks) and "force" new contributions under the terms of the new content license. The idea was that the older GFDL'd content would eventually "fade away" and be replaced almost completely with content under the new license. This is a dual-license concept that is quite a bit different, but from my reading of the GFDL was something that is impossible without the explicit permission from all of the copyright holders. Since much of the Wikibooks content was added by anonymous contributors, not to mention by many registered users of Wikibooks who didn't even know their content was "moved" to the Strategy Wiki (I hope most know about this by now, but not all of them do), there was little in the way of an opportunity to voice an opinion on the terms of the relicense. BTW, to note, the Strategy Wiki is still GFDL-only, so this potential copyright issue was diffused by the proponents of the CC license backing down and accepting the GFDL.
The only "escape hatch" that exists right now with the GFDL in terms of relicensing is the "or later version" clause that allows an updated version of the GFDL to be used instead of the current version. In this regard, nearly all Wikimedia content is dual-licensed with the current version of the GFDL and future versions...to demonstrate the power of dual-licensing concepts. BTW, it should be noted that there are many within the free software community that have removed the "or later version" clause from some GPL'd software...explicitly because they don't want to give the Free Software Foundation the power to modify the terms of the GPL to something they don't like. I haven't seen anybody writing GFDL'd content that is this anal, but it is a potential situation that should be looked into, and avoided on Wikimedia projects in general.
-- Robert Horning
adam hyde wrote:
Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
i think that pressure is already being felt with the Free Software Foundations draft the new FDL and SFDL http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html http://gplv3.fsf.org/sfdl-draft-2006-09-26.html
As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on Wikibooks?
adam
I'll give a concrete rather than a hypothetical example:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scratch/Content_License
This is simultaneously licensed under both the GFDL and the Creative Commons Share Alike license. The page explains the reasons (for compatability with other websites where the content may be "forked" or moved at some point in the future.... or at least shared).
I brought this issue up a couple of times in the Staff Lounge (now Reading Room) and as can be seen from the overwhelming response on the discussion area of the above Wikibooks page, it is hardly what could be called a controversial decision. But then again it isn't that big of a Wikibook that has made a huge splash in the Wikibooks world, much less among Wikimedia projects.
As I pointed out in the reading room, the worst issue that comes from a dual-licensed Wikibook is mainly an issue of forking, where another website (or other publisher...it doesn't have to be a website) that does not allow (or chooses to ignore) the GFDL in any form can publish the book, this particular book, under the second license terms. In that case, any changes made in the other content format won't be added back to the Wikibooks site, nor if the GFDL license is ignored or purposely left out in the fork can anybody who has the content know that a GFDL version is available. For purists about the GPL and GFDL like Richard Stallman, this would be a huge issue. Also note that the GFDL is intentionally written to avoid this sort of issue, but it isn't illegal as long as all of the participants know about how the content is licensed ahead of time.
In the case of this book about Scratch, the dual-licensing format was set up when the Wikibook was established. This is not something that can be done after a large number of people, particularly anonymous contributors, start adding content.
The worst situation I saw was with the Strategy Wiki (http://strategywiki.org/) when they "took over" the editing of the gaming guides on Wikibooks. The participants of that website were disenchanted (to put it mildly) with the GFDL, and wanted to re-license all of the content to a Creative Commons license. Specifically to the point, they wanted to put up some sort of licensing regime that kept the GFDL for all of the older content (much of which was originally on Wikibooks) and "force" new contributions under the terms of the new content license. The idea was that the older GFDL'd content would eventually "fade away" and be replaced almost completely with content under the new license. This is a dual-license concept that is quite a bit different, but from my reading of the GFDL was something that is impossible without the explicit permission from all of the copyright holders. Since much of the Wikibooks content was added by anonymous contributors, not to mention by many registered users of Wikibooks who didn't even know their content was "moved" to the Strategy Wiki (I hope most know about this by now, but not all of them do), there was little in the way of an opportunity to voice an opinion on the terms of the relicense. BTW, to note, the Strategy Wiki is still GFDL-only, so this potential copyright issue was diffused by the proponents of the CC license backing down and accepting the GFDL.
The only "escape hatch" that exists right now with the GFDL in terms of relicensing is the "or later version" clause that allows an updated version of the GFDL to be used instead of the current version. In this regard, nearly all Wikimedia content is dual-licensed with the current version of the GFDL and future versions...to demonstrate the power of dual-licensing concepts. BTW, it should be noted that there are many within the free software community that have removed the "or later version" clause from some GPL'd software...explicitly because they don't want to give the Free Software Foundation the power to modify the terms of the GPL to something they don't like. I haven't seen anybody writing GFDL'd content that is this anal, but it is a potential situation that should be looked into, and avoided on Wikimedia projects in general.
-- Robert Horning
When we first started Wikibooks I brought up the licensing issues because I foresaw that the GFDL would limit the project and cause us problems. Jimmy Wales (or was in Mav, or both? It's in the email archives) stated clearly that Wikibooks would have to use the GFDL, just like the other projects, so the issue was closed. And remains closed.
Now that the site was started with the license it has, it is very difficult to change, because every person who makes contributions is doing so under an implicit acceptance of the GFDL. Each contributer would have to give his or her permission for the license change. That would mean getting permission from each and every person who made any contribution, no matter how small, and even the anonymous contributions! This would be next to impossible.
Or, throw out all of the old contributions and materials, and start completely over with zero contributions, and a new license.
If there is going to be any dual licensing, I bet my money that it will not be legal, and this will cause great problems for getting books into the hands of real students. The only person who could convince me otherwise would be a good copyright attorney, whose help is sorely needed for this situation.
By the way do not put much (read: any) hope in the FSF being flexible in any way whatsoever with making changes to the GFDL. Just trying to be realistic based on past observations.
Hi
On Wikibooks-NL we work with a double license GFDL and CC-BY-SA. No problems have arisen until now (but we are not that big).
Older books have a template with GFDL on every page. Imported stuff (from Wikipedia) gets a template GFDL-Wikipedia
With a bot all pages on Time 0 (when we changed to double-licensing) were marked. We have asked all contributors to retro license there changes so that certain books started before Time 0 have now been double-licensed as well. Most contributors agreed.
There are off course compatibility problems with importing, but until now it was workable with templates.
New pages/books are all with double license as stated to the contributor with every edit.
So it is workable (but not easy).
Kind regards, Londenp
2007/11/21, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com:
The discussion on Wikibooks is not to use License A or License B, but instead to use License A or License A & B. We do mandate that all books be released under the GFDL, we are wondering if there is the possibilities for some books to additionally cross-license with CC-BY-SA-xx. The ramifications are:
- if the book is on Wikibooks, all future edits must be
cross-licensed accordingly 2) If the book content is merged in to another book on Wikibooks that is GFDL-only, it can be taken as GFDL. 3) if an editor wants to use the book under CC-BY-SA-xx only, he would have to fork the book to another location In lieu of a project-wide licensing scheme, maybe something like a new namespace could be created that would exclusively house books that are cross-licensed? It would be trivial to change the copyright warning on the edit page to show a different licensing message in different namespaces.
Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
--Andrew Whitworth
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
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