A question about the format of the proposal to implement the new license on all Wikimedia projects. Will a local consensus be necessary for the migration of any projects, or simply the Wikimedia community-wide consensus as demonstrated by a survey on meta? What is the contingency plan for when the meta community agrees to the migration, but specific projects have a consensus that is strongly in opposition? I don't see that being a common outcome, but it does seem possible. Thanks for your work on this, Erik, and for being very responsive to questions and criticism. Nathan

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: [snip] Substantially similar language was in a FDL draft posted to the FSF site in September 2006. (http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gfdl-draft-1.html) One of the results was some people importing the GNU manuals into a wiki. Though I suppose the "invariant sections" and "cover texts" limitations remained that particular point is still addresed this point. As such the above FAQ entry is incorrect.

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The idea of dual licensing is great. However, CC-BY-SA-only additions complicate situation a lot: * Sites which adopts the same policy as Wikipedia would have significant problems in detecting what is dual licensed and what is CC-BY-SA-only. * Sites which stay at GFDL (and a lot of wikis are GFDL just because of Wikipedia compatibility; while it is fairly possible that they wouldn't be able to switch from various reasons) would have much more problems. * Would any contributor be able to say "my contributions are licensed just under CC-BY-SA"? (Out of incorporated external works.) If so, this would make previous two possibilities practically impossible. Then, it would be much more clear to license content just under CC-BY-SA.

Note is it common in Norway, from previous cases, to be able to opt out of major single sided changes in such arrangements. Last time this was discussed in length in media it was about a contract for a satelite TV company, and it was said very clear that each and every customer had an right to opt out. Has this been given due considerations, and is there any other countries where there are any known court cases with such major license changes? And yes, I do know that some people think that a licence isn't a contract. An opt out might be to choose a completly different license or refuse to give it any license at all, effectivly using Norwegian copyright law and then creating havoc. If I understand you correctly; no matter what later Creative Commons license is choosen, the GFDL in some version will be keept? Will Wikimedia Foundation take the role of a publisher when relicensing content? And how does that affect the editors as those are the owners of the work. I try to interprete this in the context of Norwegian copyright law, and I'm not sure if this can be done. I know that some of the people involved in Creative Commons claims this to be legal. When you say "we", does you not say that you take on an editorial role? Can you do that as an ISP? Erik Moeller skrev: > All - > > As has been pointed out, the Free Software Foundation has now released > version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation License, which is the > standard text license used by all Wikimedia Foundation projects with > the exception of Wikinews. The updated license text can be found here: > http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html > > [If you are still seeing version 1.2 on that URL, you may need to > clear your browser cache.] > > We are very grateful to the Free Software Foundation for working with us > to develop this re-licensing language. > > The only change is the addition of section 11, "Relicensing". This > section permits "massive multi-author collaboration websites" (i.e. > wikis and wiki-like websites) to relicense GFDL content to the > CC-BY-SA, under two key constraints: > > * Newly added externally originating GFDL content cannot be relicensed > after November 1, 2008. (In other words, we should stop importing GFDL > content from non-Wikimedia sources, unless they plan to switch as > well. I believe Wikia is planning to switch, but will confirm that shortly. > Please feel free to begin reaching out to other relevant GFDL sources.) > > * The relicensing clause will expire on August 1, 2009. > > > == Why wasn't this license available for review earlier? == > > The restriction on externally originating FDL content is intended to > prevent bulk-import and bulk-relicensing of FDL content from external > sources. This is intended to protect the autonomy of site operators in > making a re-licensing decision, and to prevent FDL-licensed software > documentation from being re-licensed without the permission of the > authors. This was a key condition for the Free Software Foundation to > agree to this change. While an earlier draft was published, the > specifics of the migration process have been negotiated privately in > order to not allow for such systematic bulk-relicensing by interested > third parties. > > == What's next? == > > * Later this month, we will post a re-licensing proposal for all > Wikimedia wikis which are currently licensed under the GFDL. It will > be collaboratively developed on meta.wiki and I will announce it here. > This re-licensing proposal will include a simplified dual-licensing > proposition, under which content will continue to be indefinitely > available under GFDL, except for articles which include CC-BY-SA-only > additions from external sources. (The terms of service, under this > proposal, will be modified to require dual-licensing permission > for any new changes.) > > It will be the obligation of re-users to validate whether an article > includes CC-BY-SA-only changes -- dual licensing should not > be a burden on editors. This is also not intended to be bidirectional, > i.e., merging in GFDL-only text will not be possible. > > We _will_ propose to continue to permit GFDL 1.2-only media uploads > for the forseeable future, to address concerns regarding strong and > weak copyleft, until such concerns are fully resolved to the satisfaction > of community members. However, GFDL 1.2-or-later media are > expected to be migrated to CC-BY-SA under this proposal. > It is expected that we will launch a community-wide referendum on this > proposal, where a majority will constitute sufficient support for > re-licensing. > > * As a heads up, communities should be more careful with importing > external FDL content, unless they know for sure that it will > be migrated to CC-BY-SA in the near future. This will not affect > Wikimedia-internal copying transactions, as either all or no > GFDL-licensed Wikimedia wikis will be switched to CC-BY-SA. > > More information will follow later this month as we develop the > re-licensing proposal. Let me know if you have any immediate > questions. > > Thanks, > Erik