I know this is a very prickly issue, and I'm going to get a lot flak for saying this, but...I think it's time we reconsidered the ramifications of the GFDL. I'm not interested in rehashing what's been said before in favour and against using the GFDL, but last night I thought of a solution that seems it'd please everyone; basically we do not ask old users to relicense; they can do so voluntarily, but there will be no community drive to get established contributors to multi-license or relicense their contributions.
Instead, we make all edits by anons and new users after a certain date dual-licensed under the GFDL and the CC-by-sa (or some other preferable) license. Sure, this does not solve anything in the short run. However, the point is, eventually, some time far far away in the future, everything on Wikipedia can be assurably be useable under both the CC-by-sa and GFDL licenses. Whether we want to then switch solely to the CC-by-sa or stick with the dual-license is not a decision for now.
However, I think this is probably one of the very few ways to switch licenses if we ever need to. Turning the giant oil tanker of licensing contributions around is very difficult, and will take years, but such is the price of progress. This way, everyone is happy; if people want to change Wikipedia's license (or at the very least make it dual-licensed so as to avoid all those annoying problems with using GFDL material), they can do so gradually, and the GFDL will still be preserved.
If we want to change licenses, I think this is a decision that should be made sooner than later. I am not suggesting rushing the decision, but the sooner we do this, the faster we can turn the boat around. Of course, if the community wants to simply stick with the GFDL, that's okay, but at least this seems like a reasonable "exit route" if we ever need it.
John Lee ([[en:User:Johnleemk]])
On Monday 10 January 2005 16:51, John Lee wrote:
Instead, we make all edits by anons and new users after a certain date dual-licensed under the GFDL and the CC-by-sa (or some other preferable) license. Sure, this does not solve anything in the short run. However, the point is, eventually, some time far far away in the future, everything on Wikipedia can be assurably be useable under both the CC-by-sa and GFDL licenses. Whether we want to then switch solely to the CC-by-sa or stick with the dual-license is not a decision for now.
In our wikiprojects at http://www.wikinerds.org and especially at http://www.nerdypc.org we use both the GFDL and the CC-BY-SA2 with great success (we have received positive comments from users). We even allow anybody to choose what licensing terms they want for their articles. We understand that many people have strong opinions about licenses and we dont really want to force them to use any single license. we believe that we can educate them to choose the best lic for their work so we allow them to choose within a set of approved licenses. this means that every single page of our wikis may have different licensing. we consider this good because we praise the individuality of every member of Wikinerds.org and we want to allow them to express their character fully, even through their license of choice.
beware of the following paragraphcontains some wikipedia-related "rant", don't read it if you dont like and proceed to the next paragraph.
(rant)
In contrast, it my opinion that Wikipedia.org is collectivistic since does not accept signed articles, author bios, different licenses, etc. thus, IMO, wikipedia is oppressive to individualistic character traits or anything that is different than the usual group think and practices of the community - how many users have been labelled trolls recently without good reason in wikipedia.org? Nevertheless, I do recognise that WP has done lots of good work on the Net and this is amazing (but u can do more if u listen to external evaluators - not members of the group think - and change policies).
(/rant)
At Wikinerds.org we believe that we have found the best balance between individualism and the community. we have even set up a special experimental wiki at http://jnana.wikinerds.org/ where individual freedom is guaranteed and anything that is legal and does not cause any nuisance to me or to other users is permitted!
I think dual-licensing under gfdl and cc is great practice, as long as the sharealike parameter of cc is used and enforced.
I have asked this question when I met RMS this summer (at a speech): Is dual-licensing good or bad? (between gpl and another lic). He said it depends on the other license. (everything after this notice are my ideas - not rms') I interpreted it as a reference to copyleft: if the other license allows sublicensing (like bsd) then it hindersthe purpose of gpl, but if the other license is just another copyleft pool, then theres no prob with that IMO.
However I would object any movement for CC-only licensing in wikipedia. I think gfdl is the license of choice when it comes to large texts which need effective copyleft protection. please dont abandon gfdl.
some ppl disagree with fsf politics so they prefer cc to gfdl/gpl. but there is no good reason to avoid fsf, except if your salary comes from that monopoly in the city starting with the word R :) if you haven't met rms I suggest you to go to some speech and discuss with him (if he has time for u). it is true that many people dont like him, but it it my belief that this is not because of his ideas but because of his activism style. but even if you dont like his style, you should accept that he does good work and really helped very much with the softpatent problem here in EU.
This message does not contain any legal advice and I have no special knowledge of law (IANAL). Statements made about other persons or projects in this message reflect only my personal beliefs and perceptions of the discussed persons or projects. The reader is asked to check the facts and not rely only on beliefs ([[Baconian method]]).
(sorry for any mispellings etc but i was writting quickly and have no time to check and fix the msg now.)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi NSK,
why exactly do you discussion on Wikipedia-L if you think Wikipedia is so wrong?
Anyways, I want to corret an factual error in your rant
In contrast, it my opinion that Wikipedia.org is collectivistic since does not accept signed articles,
They are implictly signed via the article history.
author bios,
Ever heard of [[User:NSK]] pages? Here everybody can put a bio, list all his/her contributions and so on. Isn't that an author bio?
different licenses,
Nobody hinders one to state on ones user-page that every contribution of that user is dual-licenced, as long as the second-licence is compatible to GFDL.
etc. thus, IMO, wikipedia is oppressive to individualistic character traits or anything that is different than the usual group think and practices of the community - how many users have been labelled trolls recently without good reason in wikipedia.org?
Not so many. The only one I can think of often happens to behave somewhat trollish.
__ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Hirschstraße 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Till Westermayer wrote:
different licenses,
Nobody hinders one to state on ones user-page that every contribution of that user is dual-licenced, as long as the second-licence is compatible to GFDL.
Correction: Practically almost all licenses are _incompatible_ with the GFDL, including the various CC licenses. If the licenses were compatible, there would be no need to explicitly state so, although it might be a good idea. Rather, we allow people to license their contributions under _any license_ because it is _their_ work, not ours. They just have to agree to include the GFDL among the licenses they release their work under.
John Lee ([[en:User:Johnleemk]])
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org