Ryan Kaldari wrote:
As far as anyone not subscribed to this listserv can tell, the proposal to migrate Wikipedia to Creative Commons is dead in the water.
True.
This should be quite an important issue for the Foundation. The time frame is narrow, running out and it looks like the Foundation is blowing it. Let there be no doubt about it: The FSF will not make a GFDL 1.4 any time soon if this opportunity is ignored.
And let me give a few maybe unpleasant ideas:
* Ditch the dual licensing. I don't understand it. I am trained as a lawyer to understand about licenses and I have not the slightest idea how the dual licensing is supposed to work. No one I talked to - layperson or professional - understood about it. Make a hard switch, as GFDL 1.3 allows. If RMS doesn't like it, too bad.
* Abandon the planned vote, don't ask the community. The issue is too complicated to hand out proper information to the laypersons in the community. Consequently we should not be bothered. Doing otherwise would in the best outcome be dishonest, because we have to decide blindly, or it could result in a disaster. And public vote on issues always means that in the end no one have to take responsibility for it.
* The responsibility for decisions of this magnitude lays with the board. WMF is a non-membership association. Don't even try to evade that responsibility by delegating it to the "community". Accept the responsibility and act accordingly.
Is it possible to have a face-to-face board meeting well before the deadline of the license update? Then invite Mike Godwin and have him prepare a presentation and Q&A session for that meeting. If you deem it necessary, try to invite Lawrence Lessig and Eben Moglin or some of their colleagues, too. Give the board members two more weeks after that to discuss and then they have the final vote. No one else. That is what being on the board is about.
There should be no doubt that it is impossible to inform the community to the level necessary. And *tongue in cheek* don't listen to the hecklers on mailing lists.
Ciao Henning