It's a shame that exchanges like this end up as back-and-forth arguments, instead of normal discussions.
I think the Foundation should be as open as possible with project communities about legal action, even if in some cases that poses an obstacle to negotiation. The spectre of legal jeopardy can put a serious damper on participation, and when the Foundation takes action pursuant to legal claims more is needed than a deletion note saying who made the demand.
Yann suggests that he (and the Wikisource community) did not know about the takedown in a timely manner; anyone not watching the files or the deletion logs might have missed it if the only note was in the deletion log. The project was not aware that the Foundation resisted the scope of the demand, or that the steps ultimately taken were the result of negotiation. Mike says Yann was aware of all of this, Yann says he didn't receive notice about the takedown until a month after it occurred, but either way... The lesson seems to be that there is room for improvement in communication, at the very least. When files are deleted by staff, why not leave a message on the village pump page or ask someone on the OTRS team for that language to do so? If you can't communicate certain facts during negotiations, why not do so afterwards? I don't imagine the WMF has non-disclosure agreements about this sort of thing, at least I hope not.
There is some tension built into this general issue, though; Cary advises that the fr.wikisource project needs to make its own decisions about what content to allow, based on a local interpretation of applicable law -- and then the Foundation deletes content without (a) providing advice on what is acceptable and what isn't and (b) without referring to the local decisions the project was advised to take. I'm not sure how this can be resolved, but surely its a legitimate source for grumbling and not grounds for a personally accusatory response from the WMF.
Nathan