[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside GFDL source?

[Tomos at Wikipedia]

Well, I think many people, including I, want to see GFDL changed and/or 
becoming compatible with CC-by-sa. The reason is just as you cited: We are 
stuck with it.

But such a change might take a long time (it has been already taking for a 
long time), while somewhat questionable practices (copying and pasting of 
texts or images without preserving history) are happening day by day. And 
that is where a quick temporary fix like the introduction of the PD license 
can help. Probably I was not clear on this, but it is not contradictory to 
the change to GFDL, (or drafting of GFCL) as I understand.

Also, if you are concerned about the importing of GFDL'd contents from 
outside sources, the PD license could specify that contents in the article, 
image, and media namespaces are not dual-licensed, but simply GFDL'd. But 
then, again, we are doing something questionable when we translate an 
article containing such a text from one language to another without 
preserving its history.

Like I suggested in the other email, it seems that the American Wikipedans 
are reasonably safe. Court may find, even in case a lawsuit happens for some 
reasons, not preserving history here and there is not a problem. And maybe 
other en. Wikipedians are as safe (or maybe not. That part is something I 
really don't know). So I am not urging that en. should adopt such a license.

But like I said, the license has its own benefits, both for en. wikipedians 
and potentially for others who copy contents (text or image) from en. 
without preserving history.

Regards,

Tomos


>From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>To: foundation-l at Wikimedia.org
>CC: wiki_tomos at hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside GFDL 
>source?
>Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 12:56:27 -0700 (PDT)

>--- Tomos at Wikipedia <wiki_tomos at hotmail.com> wrote on WikiEN-l:
> > Mav, you are right in that the effect is limited because we cannot
> > retroactively apply the second license to past edits. But if we consider 
>the
> > effect, it seems it is still better to introduce it than not, and we 
>would
> > do just as Electicology suggested:
>
>Sorry, it is simply not possible to create a derivative dual licensed work 
>from
>a GFDL-only licensed article. Doing so would be a violation of the 
>copyright of
>everyone who submitted the GFDL-only text. Dual licensing would also make 
>it
>impossible to accept any new GFDL-only text.
>
>We are stuck with the GFDL as is until the FSF makes changes to that 
>license.
>Let's concentrate on improving the license we have - Jimmy has already 
>stated
>that the FSF and CC people are interested in this type of thing.
>
>-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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