Samuel Klein wrote:
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 timeframe is a problem, absolutely.
If we were so fortunate as to have that as the only problem, there would
be nothing to prevent the WMF Board from simply extending the deadline.
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;
For a limited time - until some bit of cc-sa material is incorporated
into a given article. In a matter of months or years they will no
longer be able to import text from the latest pages; they won't be
able to choose then to relicense, because it will no longer be
possible under GFDL 1.3.
Who is going to stop them? Take this too far and it could drift into
the realm of anti-trust legislation.
This is all we need to convey. If a given site
doesn't care, great!
but most people, even those familiar with this process and our
discussions of it, do not understand the long-term implications of the
august deadline. [In part because the limited-time-dual-licensing
language muddies the issue, perhaps.]
Long-term implications require long-term discussion. The implications
have less to do with such details as a specific deadline, and more with
the terms themselves.
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.
I'm worried about small sites that want intercompatibility with WMF
projects (which are the gorilla in the room), and larger ones whose
communities expect this to be a standing option.
Those projects still need to take a positive stand among their own
members that they want such intercompatibility. Absent that, we are
only guessing about what they want.
In terms of raw
content, the fraction of new material that is imported from sites that
aren't already considering switching is small. But we have a certain
obligation to act as stewards for the free sharing of knowledge, in a
networked community that we have helped to build, including thousands
of groups who we don't directly see on Wikipedia but who have made
choices based on ours in the past.
That "certain obligation" sounds like a variation upon the Monroe
Doctrine, or the self-assumed notion of some countries that they have an
obligation to bring democracy to others. Various protestant and
orthodox sects differed from the Church of Rome in that they did not
understand that the passing the keys from Jesus to Peter would
eventually justify the appointment of Grand Inquisitors.
Sites for which compatibility isn't relevant, but
choosing the right
free license for wide reuse is, should also understand why we have
wanted this change for years, and why we have decided to make the
transition. We will help others by being proud of this and the
thought (and thousands of legal person-hours) that went into it, not
shy.
There is no such thing as a "right" free licence. I'm satisfied by
following a few fundamental principles, and beyond that, saying
"Whatever!" to any licence that people may choose. The challenge is to
make them all fit together, not to make one of them dominant.
Ec