Ray Saintonge wrote:
Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
The point I was making is that I expect people
will continue importing
and exporting as per past practice with no attention given to the
issue and few people caring. From a legal point of view that's not
optimal, but I think it's highly likely.
That's a reasonable expectation. People who are not intimately
involved
with the arcana of licensing will just turn off and ignore the
distinctions. Others may just see the rush to get everyone changed the
short period between WMF's adoption of this switch and the deadline date
as an attempt by the big kid on the block to push its policies on others.
We should certainly take care not to push anyone. I would be
delighted to see sites that do not wish to change sticking with the
GFDL - that's excellent, and it is a great license for people who use
it intentionally. What I mind is sites realizing in half a year the
implications of Wikimedia's switch, and despising the effect it has
had on them, if they chose the GFDL (and perhaps put up with some of
its quirks) simply for WP compatibility.
As much as anything else it is the short time frame that will look
pushy. Wikipedia went through a lot of debate *before* the switch, and
the internal debates of others should not matter less. As I understand
what is being said they will still be able to import from WMF projects;
that would be more important to them than whether WMF projects import
from them. To say that they chose GFDL for WP compatibility may not be
a sustainable presumption in most cases. I doubt if many of them went
through a lot of legal analysis before choosing a licence; an
it's-as-good-as-anything attitude may very well have prevailed. If WMF
projects can't copy from them it will more likely enhance the uniqueness
of their project, a potentially positive result in a competitive market.
Ec