Michael Snow wrote:
What I'm trying to illustrate is that in a civil action for damages, by the time a substantial judgment is issued, Wikimedia as a legal entity would be effectively dead anyway. Thanks to the copyleft licensing, the content would already have moved to the fork that would undoubtedly start, and many of the contributors would follow.
And I would be more than happy to lead the way on this.
Legal conservatism is a very good thing. But it's important to remember that the community is us, and the community is invincible and unstoppable in the face of a mere lawsuit. If some kind of bizarre worst case scenario did occur, we can just shed the legal clothes we were wearing, and move into another set and keep on about our business. So while legal conservatism is a good thing, we need not let it stretch into legal paranoia.
All I'm saying is that in such a situation, we need not be concerned about the death of the community itself -- this is impossible. The community *could* under great stress split into two in some kind of great schism. But I would work very hard to avoid that, and I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of the community would very much prefer to avoid that as well.
--Jimbo