This will not affect Wikimedia-internal copying transactions, as either all or no GFDL-licensed Wikimedia wikis will be switched to CC-BY-SA.
Note is it common in Norway, from previous cases, to be able to opt out of major single sided changes in such arrangements. Last time this was discussed in length in media it was about a contract for a satelite TV company, and it was said very clear that each and every customer had an right to opt out. Has this been given due considerations, and is there any other countries where there are any known court cases with such major license changes? And yes, I do know that some people think that a licence isn't a contract.
An opt out might be to choose a completly different license or refuse to give it any license at all, effectivly using Norwegian copyright law and then creating havoc.
This re-licensing proposal will include a simplified dual-licensing proposition, under which content will continue to be indefinitely available under GFDL, except for articles which include CC-BY-SA-only additions from external sources.
If I understand you correctly; no matter what later Creative Commons license is choosen, the GFDL in some version will be keept?
Relicensing can only be done by the operator of such a website, not by any other party. So the Wikimedia Foundation can choose to re-license Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc., but no other party can. We will be able to do so because most GFDL-licensed content implicitly or explicitly permits re-use under "any later version" of the GFDL.
Will Wikimedia Foundation take the role of a publisher when relicensing content? And how does that affect the editors as those are the owners of the work. I try to interprete this in the context of Norwegian copyright law, and I'm not sure if this can be done. I know that some of the people involved in Creative Commons claims this to be legal.
If some GFDL 1.2 content that cannot be migrated later is imported by accident, that should not present any great difficulty -- we will simply remove it as we would remove any other problematic copyrighted content.
When you say "we", does you not say that you take on an editorial role? Can you do that as an ISP?
Erik Moeller skrev:
All -
As has been pointed out, the Free Software Foundation has now released version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation License, which is the standard text license used by all Wikimedia Foundation projects with the exception of Wikinews. The updated license text can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
[If you are still seeing version 1.2 on that URL, you may need to clear your browser cache.]
We are very grateful to the Free Software Foundation for working with us to develop this re-licensing language.
The only change is the addition of section 11, "Relicensing". This section permits "massive multi-author collaboration websites" (i.e. wikis and wiki-like websites) to relicense GFDL content to the CC-BY-SA, under two key constraints:
- Newly added externally originating GFDL content cannot be relicensed
after November 1, 2008. (In other words, we should stop importing GFDL content from non-Wikimedia sources, unless they plan to switch as well. I believe Wikia is planning to switch, but will confirm that shortly. Please feel free to begin reaching out to other relevant GFDL sources.)
- The relicensing clause will expire on August 1, 2009.
Relicensing can only be done by the operator of such a website, not by any other party. So the Wikimedia Foundation can choose to re-license Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc., but no other party can. We will be able to do so because most GFDL-licensed content implicitly or explicitly permits re-use under "any later version" of the GFDL.
== Why wasn't this license available for review earlier? ==
The restriction on externally originating FDL content is intended to prevent bulk-import and bulk-relicensing of FDL content from external sources. This is intended to protect the autonomy of site operators in making a re-licensing decision, and to prevent FDL-licensed software documentation from being re-licensed without the permission of the authors. This was a key condition for the Free Software Foundation to agree to this change. While an earlier draft was published, the specifics of the migration process have been negotiated privately in order to not allow for such systematic bulk-relicensing by interested third parties.
== What's next? ==
- Later this month, we will post a re-licensing proposal for all
Wikimedia wikis which are currently licensed under the GFDL. It will be collaboratively developed on meta.wiki and I will announce it here. This re-licensing proposal will include a simplified dual-licensing proposition, under which content will continue to be indefinitely available under GFDL, except for articles which include CC-BY-SA-only additions from external sources. (The terms of service, under this proposal, will be modified to require dual-licensing permission for any new changes.)
It will be the obligation of re-users to validate whether an article includes CC-BY-SA-only changes -- dual licensing should not be a burden on editors. This is also not intended to be bidirectional, i.e., merging in GFDL-only text will not be possible.
We _will_ propose to continue to permit GFDL 1.2-only media uploads for the forseeable future, to address concerns regarding strong and weak copyleft, until such concerns are fully resolved to the satisfaction of community members. However, GFDL 1.2-or-later media are expected to be migrated to CC-BY-SA under this proposal. It is expected that we will launch a community-wide referendum on this proposal, where a majority will constitute sufficient support for re-licensing.
- As a heads up, communities should be more careful with importing
external FDL content, unless they know for sure that it will be migrated to CC-BY-SA in the near future. This will not affect Wikimedia-internal copying transactions, as either all or no GFDL-licensed Wikimedia wikis will be switched to CC-BY-SA. If some GFDL 1.2 content that cannot be migrated later is imported by accident, that should not present any great difficulty -- we will simply remove it as we would remove any other problematic copyrighted content.
More information will follow later this month as we develop the re-licensing proposal. Let me know if you have any immediate questions.
Thanks, Erik