On Saturday 15 June 2002 12:01 pm, Axel wrote:

...

The FOLDOC computing dictionary has been licenced to us under GFDL without invariant sections. We have incorporated many articles from them. Two weeks ago, somebody asked me whether the material from our TeX article (http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/TeX), which was originally based on FOLDOC's but has since grown considerably, could be reintegrated into FOLDOC. The answer is: only if they put our Wikipedia table into the FOLDOC entry, which they are unlikely to do because it doesn't really fit with their article formatting.

Uh oh, if this is true then this is evil (TM). We should be not be limiting the exchange of wikipedia text in this way -- especially with somebody else using the same darn license. They let us use their initial text, we shouldn't be placing unnecessary restrictions on the use of our material (especially when we are, like Axel mentions, the obvious leader of the Open/Free Content movement). All we should do is ask them to link to the wikipedia version of the text -- not require this by insisting on the use of invariant sections or by any other means for that matter.

This is a rather old issue that never quite got resolved. There was quite a bit of opposition to the table idea (which was taken from dmoz), and it was generally agreed that while a linkback should be required, we should not require the big (and ugly) dmoz-style table. The problem is that once this agreement was reached, the issue kind of faded into the background.

I think we should get this firmly resolved.