Fred Bauder wrote:
"...the text contained in Wikipedia is licensed to the public under the GNU
Free Documentation License (GFDL)"
This statement gives us standing as licensor, the defendent is a licensee
under the GFDL.
That statement is correct, but Wikipedia is not doing the licensing.
The text contained within Wikipedia has been individually licensed by
its authors under the GFDL. Wikipedia collects all these GFDL texts on
one website, but others are free to do so as well.
Note also that some text on Wikipedia isn't even created by
Wikipedians--it's an import of pre-existing GFDL works from elsewhere.
We can use it, just as anyone else can, as long as we follow the license.
-Mark