Robert Horning wrote:
I will note here that when the license issue for Wikinews came up, I voted for using the GFDL on Wikinews. I do understand many of the arguments against the GFDL on Wikinews, and many of them are very valid. I just liked the GFDL better, and felt that a common license among all Wikimedia projects was a better option.
BTW, the issue of moving Wikinews content to Wikipedia has come up on Wikipedia, with some people pointing out (correctly IMHO) that the CC license used by Wikinews is completely incompatible with the GFDL on Wikipedia.
Wikinews is Cc-by which is AFAIK compatible with GFDL, so there shouldn't be any problem moving content from Wikinews to Wikipedia (there would be from wikipedia to wikinews, though). Why is it "completely incompatible"? Mike, are there any issues with incorporing Cc-by content to a GFDL one? That would need quite content revision...
There are some real problems in that regard having Wikinews under a completely different licensing regime but that was also dealt with when the license decision was made. I hope this isn't the primary motivation behind the harmonization effort on the GFDL right now.
Do you prefer the previous "Public Domain license" wikinews had? I agree that having a different license is not something to encourage, but as the project scope required a different one, it's much better a Cc-by than PD.
I'll also note that every image I've ever added to Commons (minus a few exceptions for good reasons) has been under the terms of the GFDL as well.... even though other licenses exist and I've known about them. I hope that this "preference for CC images" is something that is expressed on Commons as something that many individuals are doing, and not something perceived as a mandatory requirement. I'm not here as a die-hard advocate of the GFDL, but as an individual I would encourage others to contribute media and other content under the GFDL as well.
Commons encourages dual licensing GFDL+Cc-by-sa