By repeating false things they will be not more true.
IT'S ABSOLUTELY FALSE THAT GFDL HAS A PRINCIPAL AUTHOR CLAUSE.
This clause only refers to a title page. READ THE LICENSE PLEASE. Wikipedia hasn't such a thing.
Attribution in the GNU FDL is done by copyright notices or the section called History.
"To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page: Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
This means: Follwowing this way of attribution the name of the autor can never dissapear.
Verbatim copying: "You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the COPYRIGHT NOTICES, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies" (my empasis).
Modification: "D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document."
Important is the following clause:
"I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, AUTHORS, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence." (my emphasis)
It is possible to ignore this? I do not think so. There is a strong obligation that every GFDL document which is modified must have a section entitled History. The only thing in the Wikipedia which can be regarded as a section history is the version history which is also the way in which authors are given credit.
One entry with the name/IP of the contributor and the date in the version history has two functions: 1. it is a substitution of the copyright noctice, 2. it is part of the section history.
A lot of people in the German Wikipedia believe that the only way to fulfill the GFDL strictly is to reproduce the whole version history resp. the names of all contributors.
"Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band" was a cooperation between Bertelsmann and the German chapter. It has a long list of ALL contributors see e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=BaWKVqiUH-4C&pg=PT979
The Directmedia Offline Wikipedia CDs/DVDs have reproductions of the version histories.
I would like to say one thing very clear:
IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE AUTHOR AND NOT A THIRD PARTY RIGHT TO CHOOSE THE WAY OF ATTRIBUTION IN THE CC-BY-SA LICENSE.
The attribution in the GFDL is described by the license. WMF or FSF has NO RIGHT to choose a specific interpretation.
WMF has NO RIGHT to relicense the old content according to the proposed "Copyright Policy" containing the CC-BY-SA attribution "expectations".
Each user has to agree EXPLICITELY to the "Copyright Policy" as part of the contract between the WMF and him. May be it is legal to make this agreement valid for older contributions of the same user. But the policy cannot bind users no more active.
Third party CC-BY-SA text content cannot be imported if there is'nt an EXPLICITE statement that the creator allows the attribution policy. It is possible to substitude the normal attribution by giving instead an internet adress BUT ONLY THE CREATOR CAN CHOOSE THIS POSSIBILITY. If you will import CC-BY-SA content you have to obey the author's way of attribution. If there is no specification the name has to be mentioned. For this contribution the attribution policy (incl. link to a list of authors if more than five) ISN'T VALID!
Klaus Graf
2009/1/21 Klaus Graf klausgraf@googlemail.com:
IT'S ABSOLUTELY FALSE THAT GFDL HAS A PRINCIPAL AUTHOR CLAUSE.
This clause only refers to a title page. READ THE LICENSE PLEASE. Wikipedia hasn't such a thing.
I've already explained our position on this issue in the prior thread on the topic; we do not share the interpretation that the change tracking obligations in the GFDL are relevant to the attribution terms we use under CC-BY-SA; we do believe that the principal authors requirement and the established practices regarding re-use under the GFDL are relevant.
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
Erik
On Thursday 22 January 2009 00:20:14 Erik Moeller wrote:
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
In fact, I believe I have the solution that would satisfy everyone.
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
Any system other than crediting everyone or crediting no one requires choosing people. How do you propose that to be done? And why doesn't the person that contributed the 6th most text (say) not deserve to be credited for their work?
On Thursday 22 January 2009 19:52:28 Thomas Dalton wrote:
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
Any system other than crediting everyone or crediting no one requires choosing people. How do you propose that to be done? And why doesn't the person that contributed the 6th most text (say) not deserve to be credited for their work?
I don't agree with that; I do believe that every author with significant (copyrightable) contribution should be credited.
2009/1/22 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 22 January 2009 19:52:28 Thomas Dalton wrote:
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
Any system other than crediting everyone or crediting no one requires choosing people. How do you propose that to be done? And why doesn't the person that contributed the 6th most text (say) not deserve to be credited for their work?
I don't agree with that; I do believe that every author with significant (copyrightable) contribution should be credited.
So what was all that about only crediting 5 authors, or a list of authors less than 1% of the article length, or whatever else?
On Thursday 22 January 2009 20:55:21 Thomas Dalton wrote:
2009/1/22 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
On Thursday 22 January 2009 19:52:28 Thomas Dalton wrote:
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
Any system other than crediting everyone or crediting no one requires choosing people. How do you propose that to be done? And why doesn't the person that contributed the 6th most text (say) not deserve to be credited for their work?
I don't agree with that; I do believe that every author with significant (copyrightable) contribution should be credited.
So what was all that about only crediting 5 authors, or a list of authors less than 1% of the article length, or whatever else?
These are examples of possibilities for people who disagree with me.
2009/1/22 Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu:
Requirement would be to give credit via the credit URL, and by mentioning the principal authors listed at that URL. What authors will be listed at that URL is something that we may change at our leisure: for example, this may be the proposed list of five authors, or none if more than five; or it may be a list of authors that is no longer than 1% of the length of the article, or none of longer; or, when appropriate software is developed, the list of principal authors as recognised by the software; it may even differ from project to project, for example Wikisource may choose to credit the authors manually (it is already doing something similar); and so on and so forth.
This is a constructive and useful proposal, thank you.
I agree with Milos when he states in another thread that we need to think further about a solution that is satisfactory to a greater number of people, at least when it comes to standardizing attribution requirements with effective application to all past edits ever made. (At minimum, I would like some more data to inform our decisions.) I also believe that the Wikimedia Foundation can responsibly and reasonably determine what attribution model it wants to apply going forward.
For example, if WMF decides that a guaranteed by-name attribution is not reasonable, scalable, and detrimental to the goals of WMF, it can responsibly tell people that. People who have made past edits could be given the option to have _those_ edits always attributed by name. The community could gradually factor out those edits if it considers them to be cumbersome.
This would cause some people to leave, but WMF could decide that causing some people to leave or fork is worth it in order to encourage greater re-use of content. It's similar to telling people that multimedia files for noncommercial use only are not welcome. Essentially, it would be a further refinement of the standards of freedom for the projects.
I agree with Milos when he states in another thread that we need to think further about a solution that is satisfactory to a greater number of people, at least when it comes to standardizing attribution requirements with effective application to all past edits ever made.
Indeed. Perhaps our first step should be a non-binding straw poll with a wide participation as possible (so using central notices and BoardVote) to find out what people think of the various ideas that have been proposed (some kind of preferential voting). Then we can have a more constructive debate about the finer details once we have a general idea of what the community wants. We can then have a binding vote on a clear proposal. (We should also seek a variety of legal opinions from a variety of jurisdictions regarding the legality of various proposals.)
2009/1/22 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
This is a constructive and useful proposal, thank you.
I agree with Milos when he states in another thread that we need to think further about a solution that is satisfactory to a greater number of people, at least when it comes to standardizing attribution requirements with effective application to all past edits ever made. (At minimum, I would like some more data to inform our decisions.) I also believe that the Wikimedia Foundation can responsibly and reasonably determine what attribution model it wants to apply going forward.
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
For example, if WMF decides that a guaranteed by-name attribution is not reasonable, scalable, and detrimental to the goals of WMF, it can responsibly tell people that.
It can however it would generally be expected that it provides a reason. A reason that is logically consistent with observed reality would probably be preferable.
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable. (It would be nice if we could agree it between us rather than having to go to court over it...)
2009/1/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable. (It would be nice if we could agree it between us rather than having to go to court over it...)
Actually we have no idea if we are able to agree. Since we've only every looked at specific proposals rather than the general case for any given medium.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable. (It would be nice if we could agree it between us rather than having to go to court over it...)
Therein lies the problem with using terms like "reasonable" in a legal document. It's a subjective term, and there are plenty of definitions that are going to work for some people and not others. Arguing over what is and what is not reasonable is a wasted exercise: The best we can do it put the issue to a vote and go with the opinion expressed by the voting majority.
--Andrew Whitworth
2009/1/22 Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable. (It would be nice if we could agree it between us rather than having to go to court over it...)
Therein lies the problem with using terms like "reasonable" in a legal document. It's a subjective term, and there are plenty of definitions that are going to work for some people and not others. Arguing over what is and what is not reasonable is a wasted exercise: The best we can do it put the issue to a vote and go with the opinion expressed by the voting majority.
That's the epitome of "tyranny of the majority".
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com:
Therein lies the problem with using terms like "reasonable" in a legal document. It's a subjective term, and there are plenty of definitions that are going to work for some people and not others. Arguing over what is and what is not reasonable is a wasted exercise: The best we can do it put the issue to a vote and go with the opinion expressed by the voting majority.
That's the epitome of "tyranny of the majority".
I didn't say it was pretty, but then again reality rarely is. We have a lot of reasonable people* here who can't even agree with what constitutes "reasonable" attribution.
* I make the blanket assumption that everybody here is being perfectly reasonable.
--Andrew Whitworth
2009/1/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable.
I agree that at least the varied interpretations of 'reasonable' expressed in this thread indicate a need for a more explicit approach. Whether such different perceptions are as wide-spread in the broader author community as they are here is not clear.
I will begin thinking about how a consultative survey could be constructed to help inform the process in a timely fashion.
2009/1/22 Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
2009/1/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2009/1/22 geni geniice@gmail.com:
So what exactly is the problem with requiring credit "reasonable to the medium or means"?
The fact that we don't seem to be able to agree on what is reasonable.
I agree that at least the varied interpretations of 'reasonable' expressed in this thread indicate a need for a more explicit approach.
There is nothing you can do that will remove that from the crediting clause. Whatever you try to require there will always be a "reasonable to the medium or means" filter between you and the reuser. Trying to engineer around it would be unwise.
Whether such different perceptions are as wide-spread in the broader author community as they are here is not clear.
And unimportant. The license doesn't take into consideration what the authors consider reasonable to the medium or means.
I will begin thinking about how a consultative survey could be constructed to help inform the process in a timely fashion.
I would suggest that first you try and produce a halfway valid justification for the 5 name+url proposal before we waste time putting it out to a survey.
Erik Moeller wrote:
For example, if WMF decides that a guaranteed by-name attribution is not reasonable, scalable, and detrimental to the goals of WMF, it can responsibly tell people that. People who have made past edits could be given the option to have _those_ edits always attributed by name. The community could gradually factor out those edits if it considers them to be cumbersome.
Let me just humbly ask you. Would it be detrimental to the goals of the WMF, if people re-using WMF content could do so in a way that would make the content impossible to use in any jurisdiction where moral rights obtain?
I ask only in a search for clarity on this issue.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
If more than 10% or so of voters want direct attribution, it'll probably be enough of a critical mass to support a fork, licensed under the GFDL 1.2 only.
I don't know if it's going to be that high or not, though.
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
If more than 10% or so of voters want direct attribution, it'll probably be enough of a critical mass to support a fork, licensed under the GFDL 1.2 only.
Nope. The GFDL 1.2 license is so bad that any fork would still be looking to use CC just in a slightly more legal way.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:19 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
wrote:
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
If more than 10% or so of voters want direct attribution, it'll probably
be
enough of a critical mass to support a fork, licensed under the GFDL 1.2 only.
Nope. The GFDL 1.2 license is so bad that any fork would still be looking to use CC just in a slightly more legal way.
What about the GFDL 1.2 is so bad that it is unusable? Clean up the history tracking, add five names next to each article title, add a copyright statement at the bottom of each article, turn on the "real name" preference, and it seems like you could bring Wikipedia into compliance. You might have to forego dreams of a print edition, but frankly that doesn't seem very effective anyway. You could probably build a hand powered e-reader for less than the cost of printing all of Wikipedia - if not today than in the not too distant future.
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
What about the GFDL 1.2 is so bad that it is unusable? Clean up the history tracking, add five names next to each article title, add a copyright statement at the bottom of each article, turn on the "real name" preference, and it seems like you could bring Wikipedia into compliance. You might have to forego dreams of a print edition, but frankly that doesn't seem very effective anyway. You could probably build a hand powered e-reader for less than the cost of printing all of Wikipedia - if not today than in the not too distant future.
Wikipedia is in compliance with the GFDL. It's resuers who have serious issues. But then I've been through this with you many times and I don't see any reason to think you are any more likely to get it this time around.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:54 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
What about the GFDL 1.2 is so bad that it is unusable? Clean up the
history
tracking, add five names next to each article title, add a copyright statement at the bottom of each article, turn on the "real name"
preference,
and it seems like you could bring Wikipedia into compliance. You might
have
to forego dreams of a print edition, but frankly that doesn't seem very effective anyway. You could probably build a hand powered e-reader for
less
than the cost of printing all of Wikipedia - if not today than in the not too distant future.
Wikipedia is in compliance with the GFDL.
So why can't a fork be in compliance with the GFDL? You said that "The GFDL 1.2 license is so bad that any fork would still be looking to use CC just in a slightly more legal way." What do you mean by this?
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
So why can't a fork be in compliance with the GFDL? You said that "The GFDL 1.2 license is so bad that any fork would still be looking to use CC just in a slightly more legal way." What do you mean by this?
What I mean is that if we consider the proposal to be legal under the CC license (I don't) then any fork would be better of using CC-BY-SA-3.0 without utilising the "Attribution Parties" bit of 4(C)(i). This means that it would get the benefits of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license without the downside that certain people appear to be trying to add.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:08 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
So why can't a fork be in compliance with the GFDL? You said that "The
GFDL
1.2 license is so bad that any fork would still be looking to use CC just
in
a slightly more legal way." What do you mean by this?
What I mean is that if we consider the proposal to be legal under the CC license (I don't) then any fork would be better of using CC-BY-SA-3.0 without utilising the "Attribution Parties" bit of 4(C)(i). This means that it would get the benefits of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license without the downside that certain people appear to be trying to add.
I also don't consider the proposal to be legal under the CC license, but I do think people will probably get away with it anyway. Additionally, I think whole concept of relicensing people's contributions under a different license is immoral and legally questionable.
Thus, forking under GFDL 1.2 only has two distinct advantages: 1) it allows people who consider "the benefits of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license" to actually be detriments, to continue to contribute; and 2) it disallows Wikipedia from incorporating these changes, thus reducing the likelihood that third parties will come along and use these changes without attribution.
I guess if you think the legal case is cut and dry those 10% could get together and initiate a class-action lawsuit, or something, but forking is probably easier and more effective.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Thus, forking under GFDL 1.2 only has two distinct advantages: 1) it allows people who consider "the benefits of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license" to actually be detriments, to continue to contribute; and 2) it disallows Wikipedia from incorporating these changes, thus reducing the likelihood that third parties will come along and use these changes without attribution.
1) I would suggest that the number of people who care strongly about the particular license used and consider such a switch to be a "detriment" is small indeed. This isn't to say that this group should be ignored, only that they aren't going to represent a community with enough viability to sustain a project the size of Wikipedia.
I guess if you think the legal case is cut and dry those 10% could get together and initiate a class-action lawsuit, or something, but forking is probably easier and more effective.
Forking may certainly be easier, but it's hard for me to imagine that a fork of Wikipedia with 10% of it's population (and I posit that to be a high estimate) will be viable. A slogan of "knowledge is free, but reusing it is more difficult because of our stringent attitudes towards attribution" isn't going to inspire too many donors when fundraising time rolls around. Plus, Wikipedia's database (I assume you only want to fork Wikipedia, and maybe only the English one) is non-negligible and will cost money to have hosted.
Fewer people will use the fork and it will grow more slowly, if it grows at all, because of licensing problems with content use and reuse. The fork will progressively become harder to use and will become more out of touch with the rest of the world of open content knowledge. You'll be able to say that at least if nobody is reusing your content that there is no chance they will be violating the attribution requirement as you've defined it.
Given the option between two wikipedias, one that is large and easy to use/reuse/incorporate and one that is small and with a difficult licensing scheme, I think you can guess where the new contributors and new donation dollars will be heading. I don't want to threaten or mock here, but I also don't want to see anybody's valuable contributions be wasted.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.comwrote:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Thus, forking under GFDL 1.2 only has two distinct advantages: 1) it
allows
people who consider "the benefits of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license" to
actually
be detriments, to continue to contribute; and 2) it disallows Wikipedia
from
incorporating these changes, thus reducing the likelihood that third
parties
will come along and use these changes without attribution.
- I would suggest that the number of people who care strongly about
the particular license used and consider such a switch to be a "detriment" is small indeed. This isn't to say that this group should be ignored, only that they aren't going to represent a community with enough viability to sustain a project the size of Wikipedia.
Come to think of it, forking under GFDL 1.3 would probably be the most appropriate. Then, since Wikipedia intends to dual-license new content, new Wikipedia content could be incorporated into the fork, but new forked content couldn't be incorporated into Wikipedia.
I guess if you think the legal case is cut and dry those 10% could get together and initiate a class-action lawsuit, or something, but forking
is
probably easier and more effective.
Forking may certainly be easier, but it's hard for me to imagine that a fork of Wikipedia with 10% of it's population (and I posit that to be a high estimate) will be viable. A slogan of "knowledge is free, but reusing it is more difficult because of our stringent attitudes towards attribution" isn't going to inspire too many donors when fundraising time rolls around.
"A free encyclopedia without the plagiarism" would be a better slogan, though I'm sure a little thought could produce an even better one.
Plus, Wikipedia's database (I assume you only want to fork Wikipedia, and maybe only the English one) is non-negligible and will cost money to have hosted.
Depends on the traffic. Pure hard drive space is relatively cheap. More traffic would lead to more expense, but it'd also likely lead to more donations.
Fewer people will use the fork and it will grow more slowly, if it
grows at all, because of licensing problems with content use and reuse.
What licensing problems?
2009/1/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The attribution issue is so divisive, however, that I increasingly wonder whether it wouldn't be sensible to add at least a set of preferences to the licensing vote to better understand what people's preferred implementation would look like, within the scope of what we consider to be legally defensible parameters.
If more than 10% or so of voters want direct attribution, it'll probably be enough of a critical mass to support a fork, licensed under the GFDL 1.2 only. I don't know if it's going to be that high or not, though.
I look forward to you leading it.
- d.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org