Sorry to only pick up on one point out of a whole
e-mail, but we are
absolutely committed to the GFDL, whether we like it or not: anything
that we use 99.99% of the content already submitted for has to be
compatible with the GFDL, because that is the licence it has been
submitted to us under.
As I said in the very email you replied to (see what happens when you pick
up on one point and ignore the rest), Jimmy Wales has already said that all
images, regardless of license, are compatible with the GFDL.
As I say, we can do two things with images:
(1) distribute a GFDL version of Wikipedia with only those images that
are compatible with the GFDL, and a separate version which includes
all images, but is under a more restrictive licence that is compatible
with the licence of *all* images used; fair use images, strictly,
should not appear in the former; and the latter may actually breach
the GFDL's terms for "derivative works" for all I know.
or (2) throw out any image that is not GFDL-compliant
I suggest you read the GFDL, specifically, clause 7.
"A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and
independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting
from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the
compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the
Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the
other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of
the Document."
AFAIK, currently, we are following option (0), which
is "fudge it by
saying we haven't decided yet, and offer the images for reuse under a
label saying 'these may or may not actually be legal for you to
reuse'; and rely on the fact that nobody hates us enough yet to
challenge us over it". I may be wrong on that bit, but that's my
understanding.
There really hasn't been an official determination made by the board, as far
as I can tell, and the statement on [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] is ambiguous as
hell, but the position that the website is an aggregation of both GFDL and
non-GFDL documents is certainly plausible. I'd say the bigger problem right
now is that we don't have a compliant title page or history section.
Rowan Collins BSc
Anthony