On 02/04/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Well, maybe there is no clear "all text" statement that can be made here, as some of it must be distributed using the terms of the original contributor, of which version 1.2 may be the chosen version for display on wikipedia but version 1.1 should be available for people who choose to if the text derived from before June 2003.
It is available under 1.1, but Wikipedia has no obligation to say so.
Anyone seriously challenging this may think otherwise and use the lack of transparency in this part as a negative factor. Particularly if the challenge related to the "or later" clauses which are completely unique to Free Software licenses and hence have not been interpreted by a court of law AFAIK so far. "Or later" does not imply "only 'later or later' ".
I still do not see how it is up to wikipedia to be allowed to specify the base version which may be chosen by users when contributors in the past had a wider range of possible licenses to choose from for the same content. Content providers of free material should not reduce the rights of consumers, or attempt to hide the fact that they are reducing their rights IMO.
Wikipedia is not a content provider, it is a content user. The content is provided by the contributors, and they can release it under whatever licenses they please as long as one of them is the license required by Wikipedia (they can choose not to release it under that license, but then it cannot be posted to Wikipedia). Wikipedia has every right to specify what content can be used on Wikipedia - that is all it is doing.
I don't see how they are able to change their agreement to license content under version 1.1 or later to make it 1.2 or later without consulting the copyright owners to see whether they agree that the redistribution is not limiting the rights of users who want to use it under version 1.1 for whatever reason they see fit. If wikipedia stuck with a constant "vX.Y or later" it would be much simpler. Changing the base version "just because" is never a good reason with legal issues.
Peter