On 6/11/07, David Mestel <david.mestel(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Public domain
is not a license.
Maybe not, but the point still stands - you can't licence someone else's
work.
If you are the joint author of a work, you can license it. If you
have permission from the other person, then you can license it.
I suppose you
could do that, but the GFDL doesn't require it. Take a
look at
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ AFAICT there is no
history section.
No history section is required, technically, if a Document is written and
then distributed only as a verbatim copy, but that's not the case with a
Wikipedia article.
What you're missing is that the authors of a work don't have to follow the
GFDL.
A joint work is
"a work prepared by two or more authors with the
intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or
interdependent parts of a unitary whole." (USC title 17, section 101)
I'd say that describes a typical Wikipedia article, though I admit one
could argue against it.
Regardless of the merits of that claim, what are its repercussions?
If there is a joint authorship agreement, then that governs the
authors rights. If not, then each author owns an undivided interest
in the entire work, essentially like a [[concurrent estate]].