This response is transferred from Wikitech where DM's posting appeared.
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Isn't
this already too late? You can only dual license copyleft material if all
copyright holders agree to it. The people who have posted stuff so far on
Wikipedia have posted it under GFDL exclusively.
I'm sure that most of them have never given any serious attention to the
licence details.
I can't believe I'm hearing this. I don't know what to say.
I remember reading about how we're going to one day plug all history back into
all articles, from the earlier software phases, because if we didn't we would
be violating the license terms set by our contributers (GFDL).
And now we're just going to brush it all aside? I'm outraged.
My statement was a simple statement of fact, not a brushing aside.
People just don't have the time or the expertise to wade through
endless texts of legalese. They just say yes, and hope for the best.
Under our law a contract by a child is not enforceable unless it's for
necessities, so if a child agrees to a software license as a matter of
contract it's unenforceable anyway. Provisions in a license to transfer
jurisdiction to a United States court are of dubious validity, and may
be contrary to a person's constitutional rights in his own country. If
the opportunity comes up that requires transferring software to a Cuban,
I will gladly ignore United States law because whatever transactions I
may have with a Cuban is absolutely no business of the United States.
Can you honestly say that you have read and fully understood all of
these licences? If yes, I'd love to be in a position to have you write
an exam on them.
If we want to combine different licenses, we have to
track down all
contributers for each relevant article, and get their permisson. Otherwise,
we're breaking GFDL.
Wouldn't that be just a little unrealistic? A more common sense
solution would be better.
Yes, this is unrealistic. This is why I said that it is probably too late to
begin dual licensing Wikipedia content (except in the case of new articles).
The more common sense solution (in that it is a realistic endeavour) is of
course to remove all quotes. Frankly, there aren't that many there to begin
with.
Removing all quotes is just as silly as seeking for everyone to provide
positive written consent. Negative consent might be easier. In other
words, you eMail all users at their last known address to outline the
proposed changes that will go into effect in (say) six months. You
invite them to respond within that time; failure to respond will imply
consent. In any consent system we still aren't saying what we will do
with the work of those who say no. How can we remove their
contributions without harming the contributions of others who have been
involved in the same article.
Not all quotes are a subject of fair use. Some really are in the public
domain, because they are that old. Who is going to take the time to
identify all the quotes for removal?
Ec