Fastfission wrote:
I agree. We
should implement this sometime around 2001. 2002 at the
latest.
At the moment we are completely at the whim of the FSF lawyers if we
want to make our content more compatible with other licenses. The
GFDL, obvious mismash that it is, has not been updated for four years.
I don't think it actually gives the kind of freedom that people want
for this text -- it binds them up in red tape, confusing and imprecise
language, and implementation requirements which are hard even for the
best-wishing people to comply with. Personally I consider that to be
practically non-free in many respects.
While this is all true, the GFDL *is* fairly far along the process of
being rewritten, and the FSF has seemed willing to consult with
Wikipedia about its needs during the process (I believe Jimbo has been
queried about it). Whether the language will be less of a confusing
mish-mash I won't speculate, but the single biggest problem---that you
have to print the entire damn license with every copy you
distribute---seems likely to be solved.
So I'd personally lean towards waiting to see if the next GFDL is
something we can live with, before trying to relicense the whole
encyclopedia---a huge and messy undertaking.
-Mark