Michael Snow wrote:
Section 4B allows the authors to release you from the requirement to identify five principal authors. Since the title of the article functions as the Title Page for GFDL purposes, and because we have never, as far as I know, identified principal authors along with the title of the article, I would argue that the release applies. Given our existing practices, we should take the position that all contributors have implicitly released us from the requirement to list authors on the Title Page. This would also neatly eliminate the problem of how to identify "principal authors".
I think that's fine, but I presume that the implicit release only applies to Wikipedia. That's a problem, because Wikipedia is supposed to be a free encyclopedia. Requiring creators of derivatives to identify and list 5 of the principal authors on the "title page" while Wikipedia itself doesn't even list them in a convenient form anywhere is not consistent with this goal of freedom.
It should also be noted that not all content on Wikipedia was submitted to Wikipedia by the author. Some of it was copied from a site which released it under the GFDL. Yes, this problem is limited in scope, but it is there.
Anthony