On 02/03/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Based on this principle: can one really ask users to re-(multi)-license their PAST contributions? That is, can I say, "All those contributions I said were under the GFDL? Well, now I want them to also be GFDL or CC-BY-SA." Legally, I'm suspicious, but I'm also not a lawyer.
It seems acceptable to me.
I make an edit to a page. This edit is utterly and irrevocably copyrighted by me (assume, for now, that it's a nontrivial edit). However, I also implicitly release that edit under the GFDL.
I am, however, completely at liberty to reuse that edit *outside* the terms of the GFDL, since I personally own the copyright; this would include, for example, deeming it to be licensed under a different license *so long as I did not revoke the GFDL*. The GFDL is a license, not an abdication of copyright.
Does that make sense? Consider a non-commercial CC license - it doesn't mean the copyright holder can't make money off it, it just means that no-one *else* can.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk