On 9/24/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Which not all users would, including some major contributors.
One could work around that. Over time things would probably begin to phase towards the multi-licensed versions. If it really came down to it, people would know what content they couldn't use in a non-GFDL way.
In any case, I wonder why major contributors would object. One would not be handing the WMF a blank check -- you'd be just saying that any license which implemented the most important parts of the GFDL would be kosher, par discussion with the WMF. At the very least, the GFDL would still be kosher. Sounds like freedom to me.
Which becomes pure hell when you get to derivative works - particularly when you start with replacing content lost to the scan, and get into a wealth of "Was this based off of my not-CC-licensed paragraph on this topic or not" disputes, any and all of which could become litigious.
I doubt it would become litigious. And considering how much of WP content itself is based on "re-writing" of other sources, I find it unlikely that it would be a big issue of one was "re-writing" a GFDL text so you could release it under CC.
In any case, it would be up to the re-user to figure out, though we could make things easier. The point is that at the very minimum they could assume it was GFDL and treat it as such. It would be up to them to figure out if it qualified for other usage. It opens the possibility for more-free use, whereas the status quo does not.
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.
So, you can be snide about it, but I don't think that helps much. Wikipedia grows and grows. The longer we wait, the bigger the problem is. The sooner we act, the more flexibility we'll have in the future.
FF