I'm curious (and not arguing it is the case) why due diligence here does not involve e-mailing every person who has ever made an edit and has their e-mail address in their profile. On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

I'd vote for the BoardVote method - I'd say deciding what license we're releasing things under is more important than electing board members, so it doesn't seem like overkill to me. Other decisions that need to be made regarding the vote are suffrage and what level of majority is required. Options for suffrage are many - you could say just 1 edit is required on the grounds that anyone with a single edit is directly affected by this proposal, so why shouldn't they be able to vote on it? You could use the same suffrage requirements as board votes, since they are commonly taken as a definition of community membership for the purpose of votes. You could even weight votes by number of edits (one vote per edit sounds like a bad idea to me but weighting by log(edits) may be worth discussing). As for majority required, I would say something more than 50% should be necessary. We traditionally favour the status quo in pretty much everything we do (except, for some reason, with the 3RR, I've never understood that... but that's a discussion for another time and place). Also, if we say 50% is all that's required and the result comes out as 50.3% or something, you should know it's going to cause massive drama (if we chose 60% and the results is 60.3% there is still going to be plenty of drama, of course, but hopefully less). I'd go with a requirement of 60%, but that's really just a number plucked out of thin air, I welcome suggestions from people with actual reasons!

2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: We discussing a move to CC-****BY****-SA, attribution is still required. I'm not an expert on the attribution requirements of CC-BY-SA (I've just read them, but it isn't entirely clear to me whether Original Author is, in the context of a wiki, just the latest editor or all editors), but it seems clear to me that we can require people to link back to Wikipedia (in particular, the history page) so that everyone is, at least indirectly, attributed. Given that that's how most people are using the GFDL anyway, I really don't see the problem.

Another question: Given the WMF admission in the FAQ that the GFDL has * never* been followed in re-use of Wikipedia content due to the insane difficulty of doing so, and given its rampant "illegal" re-use on the web, and the WMF's ignoring this illegal re-use for years on end, what chance is there that a court of law would find that the GFDL actually applies to this content were someone to sue a re-user? Isn't it true that the efforts to force re-users to appropriately atrribute the content have not actually asked them to follow the letter of the GFDL? Is a license that is never enforced truly a license, in the legal sense? On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: Where exactly does it say that attribution is not required under CC-BY-SA 3.0? ""Original Author" means, in the case of a literary or artistic work, the individual, individuals, entity or entities who created the Work" It's all editors (unless the most recent version is not derived from previous versions). If you find that "extremely confusing" what makes you think you are in a position to have informed opinions in this area? Compared to many issues related to free licenses it is very simple. That would depend on the legal system and is somewhat questionable even then. Arguing that a URL is "reasonable to the medium or means" in the case of say a book would be tricky to do. Not at all. There are quite a number of benefits. In fact one thing the switch doesn't do is address the problem that copyright law as we know it doesn't work to well about 20 authors. Other than MITT and BSD style licenses all free licenses break down when you throw enough authors at them. Ever read the foundation mission statement? See the "disseminate it effectively and globally" bit. I would regard it as unacceptable for them not to switch. Reasons that are consistent with reality would probably do rather better. By not editing wikimedia foundation projects other than some wikinews projects. -- geni

Um... yes it is... I don't think that's clear at all. I don't know how many authors you are meant to attribute things to under CC-BY-SA, it may well be all of them. I need to do more research (or, I need someone to tell me the answer!). My reason for thinking we need more than 50% has nothing to do with the acceptability or otherwise of the proposal but rather, as I said, our tradition of favouring the status quo. Yes, you gave a number with a reason, thank you for that, I just disagree with the reason. I'm not sure Mike was thinking clearly when he said that - I don't see any way someone that has made a significant number of edits could opt-out. The work required in tracing what parts of what articles are derivative of your edits would make removing your edits infeasible, so every article you've edited would have to remain under only GFDL, which dramatically reduces the usefulness of the changeover. And that's before we consider articles that have been merged and other means by which text is moved from one article to another.

2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu>du>: The license is between the author and the re-user, the fact that the WMF has tolerated it being violated is irrelevant. You can lose a trademark by not defending it, but I don't think the same applies to copyrights, so unless the individual owner can be shown to have said it was all right not to follow the license to the letter, I don't see why they can't sue. (IANAL, YMMV, BBQ)

I was under the impression that the WMF does hold a copyright over the entirety of a particular Wikipedia as they offer that collection for download. And re-users often use these dumps as seeds for their "illegal" re-use. http://download.wikimedia.org On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote: The WMF doesn't hold a copyright over the dumps, they merely distribute it (in violation of copyright law, I might add).

Who owns the copyright for the selection, coordination or arrangement of the dumps? http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat092303.html On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

2009/1/8 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: Depends what you call "enough", but the GPL is doing okay. - d.

On 8 Jan 2009, at 22:16, Thomas Dalton wrote: My preference would be: all authors that have contributed to the article, where that contribution has not been reverted, unless the authors say that they don't want to be attributed. There is a large amount of leeway here, though: I think even "Wikipedia" would satisfy the license, or on the other scale a complete list of every editor of the wiki. The WMF really needs to state up front what the attribution should be before we have the vote / start using the license (assuming we do). Note that for the GFDL the requirement is that five (or all if less than 5) of the principle authors of the document (which I would interpret as an article) should be attributed. Personally, for everything I've written, and any photograph I've taken, I want to be attributed when it is / they are used, with the option to waive the attribution if I dislike the usage of it. That applies both to content I've submitted to Wikipedia et al., and in general to anything else I do. I'm happy for that attribution to be relegated to an "et al." in the case of being one author among many, where my contributions are less than the N authors being attributed. Mike Peel

http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20081008/ These subcollections obviously pass the threshold for creativity. A court case on telephone directories, which is simply a two or three column output, has very little applicability to the complex formats published by the WMF. I also recognize this to be a legal grey area, and my opinion unfounded. But I believe this would have significant consequences, no? On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

2009/1/8 Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net>et>: I would agree, except that I would exclude non-creative contributions (spelling corrections, say). It would probably be easier for a re-user to include them anyway, though. "Wikipedia" would only satisfy the license if the author specifically said that was ok. The FAQ says there will not be a requirement to designate "Wikipedia" or anything else to receive the attribution. I would expect the attribution requirements to be made perfectly clear before we vote, if they're not, I would almost certainly vote against the proposal.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 6:02 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: I only have a right to complain about the violation of MY copyright. For all I know, everyone else is happy to have their rights violated.

The specific reason I would claim that the telephone directory case does not apply is that the dumps are in a machine readable format that is intended to be read by one, and only one, machine: MediaWiki. There must be another domain of applicable case law. On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote: The main article dumps are in a human readable XML format. Myself and others use them in various ways without parsing them through Mediawiki. The principle point though is whether the selection or arrangement of the dumps contain the minimal spark of creativity necessary for an independent copyright (the core issue of Feist). Personally, I would argue they do not. The selection is comprehensive (all data of a give class), and the arrangement is quite obvious. (Perhaps not as obvious as a phone book, but still a fairly standard presentation consistent with the way comparable databases are communicated.) I suppose one could try to argue the point, but I would definitely take the side that the arrangement and selection of information in the dumps is not a creative act. -Robert Rohde

2009/1/8 Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com>om>: Not really. Firstly the WMF is in no position to provide such advice. It is not a significant copyright holder and it doesn't write the license. Major wikipedia authors and CC are in a far better position. Secondly you hit the issue that the license states that attribution should be reasonable "reasonable to the medium or means". Quite apart from the problem that this will vary from legal system to legal system the range of medium means that the resources needed for the guidance section are immense consider: Plastic models stained galss Globes with maps on them Cameo (carving) Wood pannel painting knitting Portrait photographs Ceramic sculpture metal cannon models maps computer games documentaries quiz books magazines Ceramic cups Engravings on Tankards music on magnetic tapes music by popular beat combos on vinyl records popularly known as ah "45s" etc All of which I can see without moveing from where I'm sitting or indeed turning around. In fact if you actually feel that there is some benefit in non binding guidelines that are very firmly not legal advice then it may be time to start a new wikimedia project or the very least some form of project on commons. A new wikimedia project would probably be a better way of addressing it. -- geni

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:59 PM, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: <snip> As a major organization with legal council, the WMF is in a much better position to understand what the license requires than most reusers. Yes, we could ask major Wikipedia authors what they "want" when Wikipedia content is reused, but that is not necessarily the same as asking what the license requires and is certainly impractical at the large scale. I'm looking for guidance of the sort: Doing X, Y, and Z, is generally sufficient to comply with CC-BY-SA. It need not be minimally sufficient, and probably shouldn't be, since any advice we give ought to be at a level that is clearly black and white, and not gray. Maybe we necessarily limit that advice to text and certain traditional print mediums, but I do think there needs to be something direct about acceptable standards for attribution. It is not sensible to have a proposal that WMF wants to relicense everything CC-BY-SA and then also say that the WMF is in no position to say what that means for the reuse of Wikipedia content. -Robert Rohde

2009/1/8 Robert Rohde &lt;rarohde(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I agree. We'll try to formulate that attribution guideline as part of the full proposal (and it'll be discussed further from there before we go into voting). As I mentioned earlier up-thread, it'll likely look similar to what is suggested here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions#Proposed_attribution_text Codifying a similar clause in the Wikimedia-wide terms of use is fully consistent with attribution requirements of the GFDL. There seems to be some confusion related to the "History" section of GFDL documents, the purpose of which is clearly change-tracking, not attribution, as its preservation is only explicitly required for modified versions. A reasonable attribution expectation of someone who licensed edits under GFDL would be to be attributed where possible (i.e. where there are five authors or fewer), and to be otherwise referred to the full list of authors. Once these attribution requirements are consistent and clear, it should be more straightforward to bring some internal use cases into compliance (e.g. transwiki copying, attribution in the page footer, dumps). -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Brian wrote: Given that no one selects, coordinates or arranges the dumps, no one owns the copyright on them.

Gerard Meijssen wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow Huge effort is not copyrightable.

Hoi, That is only for US law. It is also debatable if this is just "sweat of the brow" because a lot of creativity is involved in creating this collection. It does not even necessarily apply to you as you are in a different jurisdiction. Thanks, Gerard 2009/1/9 Nikola Smolenski &lt;smolensk(a)eunet.yu&gt;

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 3:37 AM, Nikola Smolenski &lt;smolensk(a)eunet.yu&gt; wrote: I haven't seen anyone trying to lay claim to a copyright on the dumps. I would venture to say that it's merely a transformative work, as it doesn't do anything but collect them in a machine-readable format. The various dumps are designed to organize the information, not change them in any way. -Chad

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:59 PM, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: ... Ha! I would like to immediately challenge community members to come up with some way to reuse wikimedia content in one of the media listed by geni, above... (a knitted article, authors embroidered on the back? An engraved-tankard with PD picture? A spoken-wikipedia 45?). Best example brought to Wikimania this summer will win a prize, with categories: most creative, best craftsmanship, best use of/compliance with the GFDL, etc. If a contributor sues you over content reuse, I'll help pay the legal fees, any items produced/sold commercially excepted. -- phoebe

I think this is probably true. On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: -- You have successfully failed!

2009/1/10 Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: I disagree, I don't think each edit is a work but rather each revision is a work, derived from the revision before. The question is then who is the Original Author of the latest revision, is it just the person that made the last edit or is it everyone before (ie. are authors of a work automatically authors of a work derived from it)?

geni wrote: It's not quite legally meaningless, in that legal decisions in practice aren't nearly as much like formal-logic inference as many people would like to pretend. In an ambiguous area of law with little precedent and a license that could be interpreted multiple ways, "I reused Wikipedia content in accordance with how Wikimedia said the license should be interpreted" would probably be granted some deference, if the Wikimedia interpretation were within the range of reasonable ones. -Mark

2009/1/10 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: No such requirement exists under US law. -- geni

Thomas Dalton wrote: One might even regard many articles as having a homeopathic nature. Someone starts the article, and over time and many successive edits that person's contribution becomes diluted until it vanishes. There's often nothing of left of it to copyright. Ec

2009/1/10 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: Not actionable unless we receive an actual demand. Which I'm pretty sure we haven't. -- geni

A prize for best cross-media reuse of content - I love it. I will contribute to the prize pool one large gnu, and one piece of similarly huggable CC swag, signed by free-content luminaries To Be Named. --SJ On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 3:57 PM, phoebe ayers &lt;phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Anthony wrote: With that comment you would certainly win a bobblehead of Richard Stallman if such a thing were available. This could be awarded for a single-minded devotion to whatever topic is at hand to an extent where all shmoos and tribbles march past unnoticed. Sam, Phoebe and perhaps Geni were all able to accept the spirit of a pleasant diversion, and develop new ideas accordingly. After all, there is more to Wikieschatology than the knowledge itself. Ec

2009/1/11 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: Thanks for acknowledging this. The GFDL (including prior versions) deals with author names for three different purposes: * author credit on the title page; * author copyright in the copyright notices; * author names for tracking modifications in the history section. For its author credit provisions, the GFDL includes specific permission to limit credit to the five principal authors. It is evident that this permission exists precisely to avoid an eternally inflating byline. Even then, it was clear that the covers of software manuals did not have infinite space. In the context of Wikipedia, authors do not receive credit alongside the page title as suggested for software manuals. Indeed, the closest there is in Wikipedia to the byline suggested in the GFDL is a link to the document history close to the page title. In the context of Wikipedia, authors are not named as part of the copyright notice. Wikipedia contributors have therefore interpreted the GFDL in the context of Wikipedia to allow for principal author attribution, with a link to the history as a reasonable alternative. There is a legitimate argument that, under a literal reading of the GFDL, any re-user _also_ has to include a full copy of the change history. The fact that author credit and change history are combined in the context of Wikipedia is irrelevant, as they are covered by separate provisions in the GFDL. Wikipedia contributors, including you above, widely agree that a requirement to include full change histories is "overkill" and would make re-use extremely cumbersome if not completely infeasible for heavily edited articles. No contributor has ever attempted to enforce this provision of the GFDL, and it seems quite likely that such an attempt would be rejected by a court on grounds of established guidelines, practices and expectations, including site-wide copyright terms such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights , which contributors agree to when making edits. The FSF agrees that this requirement is not in the spirit of the license when dealing with heavily edited documents, or at least it does not disagree, for it has not insisted on switching to a license which preserves this onerous change tracking requirement. Instead, for massive multi-author collaborations, it has given permission to use a license, CC-BY-SA, which only requires to indicate that modifications have been made (section 3.b), not to include a full record of such modifications. What we are left with, then, is to come up with attribution guidelines in the context of CC-BY-SA which are consistent with reasonable expectations and established practices for author credit per the GFDL. Given its clear reference to five principal authors for author credit, and given established practices to link to the page history (or even the article, as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights ), the proposed attribution-by-URL in certain circumstances is a fully legally and ethically acceptable way to meet this need. This does not close the door to improvements to attribution guidelines and practices, including software changes, but such improvements are a separate issue from the license update itself. That update, as I've expressed before, is motivated by many factors, chiefly including compatibility and - in summary - the overall complexity of the license for re-users. The change history inclusion requirement is only one element of that complexity. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2009/1/11 geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I don't understand, which terms don't appear and how is that relevant? CC-BY-SA allows authors to specify how they wish to be attributed, so we can (at least try to) choose a way that ought to be acceptable to people that have accepted the GFDL.

2009/1/11 geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Interesting - the "human-readable" version says: "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor". Now that I look for it, however, I can't find anything like that in the license itself...

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt; wrote: In fact, while we're talking about intent, wasn't the software implementation of the change history created before the GFDL was adopted? It seems to me that the change history couldn't possibly have been intended to represent the GFDL section entitled history. In fact, there used to be a [[Wikipedia:GFDL History]] page provided this. It wasn't deleted until 28 December 2006. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:GF…

2009/1/11 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: It does so, in the context of Wikipedia.org, because change tracking and attribution are served by the same software function. That a listing of all authors would always be included directly (as opposed to by reference) with any copy of a Wikipedia article is not a reasonable inference from this fact, especially given that the language in GFDL which clearly exists for purpose of giving credit includes reasonable limitations (principal authors). After all, even you yourself agree that including the full change history with each copy is overkill. Hence, we are having a practical debate about what is and isn't reasonable. I base my argument on the language of the GFDL when it comes to author credit, which includes limitations, as well as established guidelines and practices on Wikipedia. Your argument, on the other hand, appears to be pulled out of thin air. It is neither a direct requirement of the GFDL, nor an established practice, nor a reasonable expectation of a volunteer contributor. I can only conclude that it is your personal preference. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2009/1/12 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: Yeah, you have a point there... It can't be done via terms of service since that requires getting people to agree to them and it's too late for that. Another method is required.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: I fail to see how you can follow the GFDL without crediting all authors. After all, even I don't think you understand what I meant by that. I don't think the GFDL should require including a full change history, but I do think it should require every author to be credited directly in the document, and it should ensure that these authors are credited in a way that they are not considered responsible for modifications made by others. Hence, we are having a practical debate about what is and isn't Why? I assure you that the concept of the right to attribution is not something I pulled out of thin air. It is neither a It most certainly is a requirement of the GFDL (not sure what your weasel-word of "direct" is supposed to mean). It most certainly is an established practice (it's part of the Berne Convention, though it's a part which the United States has failed to implement). And it most certainly is a reasonable expectation of a volunteer contribution (plagiarism is a violation of a natural right which even a five-year old would recognize).

2009/1/9 Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: For the record, this interpretation has been confirmed by Creative Commons General Counsel. The application of an edit results in an Adaptation with multiple Original Authors. They've also confirmed that an attribution regime where edits are attributed via reference to the history page is fully consistent with CC-BY-SA. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Because the copyright owners is often a very long list. The notice: "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)" is displayed, and that's pretty much all that is practical. Another link to the history page might be good, I guess.