Sj wrote:
Someone in Boston is publishing a book in which he would like to include a few entire Wikipedia articles; he wrote me recently to ask whether this had been done before, and precisely how he should go about including the GFDL where, to clarify which sections of the published work it covers, and how he should most perfectly comply with the license (should he list main authors himself? all non-anon authors? should he use pseudonyms or full names of both are available? Do IP contributors ever include their real name on their user page? Will it look funny to list pseudonyms as authors in what is otherwise a scholarly text?).
If there are precedents, please point me to them. If anyone can advise on this matter, please respond! Perhaps I should I contact the FSF directly, but I thought I'd check with this list first.
I would definitely contact the FSF about this, regardless of what other opinions you get. Not only do they have lawyers on staff, but it would be helpful to make them aware of any issues that come up when trying to use GFDL'd texts in practice, since it's fairly widely assumed that they will eventually draft a new version of the GFDL to take into account problems that have come up with the initial draft.
-Mark