Axil's interpretation strikes me as the standard interpretation for those writing free software. I retain the copyright the code I write, and license it under the GPL or some other license, but also maintain the right to relicense it under a revised version of the GPL, a BSD style license, or any other agreement I choose.
In many cases this standard practice is amended to include the assignment of copyright to the Free Software Foundation, or some other organization which I trust with the ability to relicense my code under whatever license they choose. As long as an entity retains copyright, they will be able to release the copyrighted material under whatever license they choose. Not assigning copyright is therefore a protection against undesirable license changes, but at the very least it is common practice to view the assignment of copyright as a separate transaction from submitting code under a particular license.
Legally, if you want us to assign copyright to you, I think you need to change the wording of the submission text, and add some verbiage to the top of your license page.
I am not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the current situation, and can easily be confirmed by consulting a lawyer with some experience with free software, or by looking up stories on the subject at www.lwn.org, or looking into the faq on why you should assign copyright to the FSF at www.gnu.org.
Yours Mark
-----Original Message----- From: Larry Sanger [mailto:lsanger@nupedia.com] Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 6:10 PM To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] File upload Copyright notice
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Axel Boldt wrote:
The current file upload utility requires the user to "donate" the copyright to "Wikipedia". Wikipedia is no legal entity, so this doesn't make sense. It is also not in line with the way we have handled copyrights up to know for text submissions: the user retains copyright, but licenses the work under GFDL. I suggest that this be changed.
What makes it true that "we have handled copyrights up to now for text submissions" in this way (i.e., with this interpretation)? As far as I can tell, Axel, you were the first to insist, several months ago, that this was the case. If I recall correctly, Jimbo and I admitted that this might be a valid interpretation. For my part, I thought it was obvious from the beginning that writers are donating text to the project, in order for it to be distributed freely to the public at large. While I can certainly freely admit that there are other interpretations, what I can't understand is why you would think another interpretation is so clearly the correct one. I don't think we've settled the issue.
By the way, Wikipedia might soon join Nupedia as part of a Nupedia Foundation; that then would be the obvious holders of Wikipedia article copyrights.
Larry
[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l