Florence Devouard wrote:
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
Either follow the terms of the GFDL or don't. If you don't follow the GFDL, that means all of my contributions revert to ordinary copyright law with all rights reserved, and I do not give permission to use this content under any other license.
-- Robert Horning
Let me ask you, what exactly does the GFDL have that another license might not, and why be such a stickler for the GFDL? If you are looking to protect your rights over your contributions, most importantly the right of attribution, why wouldn't a license like CC-BY-SA be acceptable? A license like CC-BY-SA affords nearly all the same rights and protections as GFDL, but doesn't require the work to be accompanied by a lengthy copy of the license document.
I think what most people want is (a) that their works are made freely available, and (b) their rights are protected. Given these points, what would be a rationale for opposing such a license switch, besides wanting to be a pain in the ass?
--Andrew Whitworth
Let me second that request (without the part about the pain in the ass tough). I really would like to understand better why you would consider a cc-by-sa license not acceptable.
Ant
Some of this is that I get very confused when I talk about Creative Commons licenses. You are talking about a specific license here, but that is IMHO one of the problems with this license.
I've known the Free Software Foundation, and RMS in particular, for some time now. I may not agree with everything that RMS stands for, but he and the FSF is generally predictable and RMS has been very consistent for some time on the fundamental issues of intellectual property freedom. I don't see the Free Software Foundation changing their licenses in a dramatic fashion to lose sight of that basic quest for Intellectual Property (software and the written word, but also trademarks and patents too) freedom. In this regard, I suppose I can say that I don't have the same level of trust with Creative Commons...even if other may put the same or more trust that Creative Commons on this front.
For example, there are several non-commercial only licenses in the Creative Commons suite. The Free Software Foundation has been very consistent that non-commercial use only is actually harmful to the basic freedoms of IP content and has never endorsed any such license... and all of the FSF licenses openly encourage for-profit activities with content that uses their licenses. They have also encouraged (unlike the WMF I might add) others to make a commercial profit... if possible... with intellectual property that actually belongs to the FSF using no other restriction other than simply using the terms of the licenses that they have already published. This even includes the FSF logo I might add as well. That is a very bold statement in terms of freedoms of content.
In all this I'm not saying that the CC-by-SA license is the spawn of the devil or anything else that crass. Some very good work has gone into the development of the Creative Commons licenses, and I generally support the overall goals of those involved in that effort. I just haven't released much content in those licenses, and as a matter of personal preference generally try not to use those licenses unless the people I'm working with insist upon a Creative Commons license of some sort or another. I'm not even really sure I can put it in words more clearly than this, but in short, I really don't like the license. It is also more or less why I like one political party over another, but I feel others are entitled to their own opinions on the subject as long as they don't force me to change my position.
I also think the WMF was very lucky to have started out with the GFDL instead of other licenses, and that the experiment to create an encyclopedia based upon the GFDL has been wildly successful. While many of those involved with Wikipedia and the other sister projects may not really be concerned about licenses and legal nonsense, I do believe that much of the success of these projects has to do with the freedoms enshrined within the GFDL...in spite of problems with the GFDL that we all know that it has.
-- Robert Horning