[Foundation-l] GFDL CC announcement

[Thomas Dalton]

On 01/12/2007, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure what you're suggesting.  Traditionally, at least, in
> > order for two copyleft licenses to be compatible, they have to be
> > identical.  Any derivatives of CC-BY-SA have to be CC-BY-SA.  Not
> > "compatible with" CC-BY-SA, but exactly CC-BY-SA.  Any derivatives of
> > GFDL have to be GFDL.  Not "compatible with" GFDL, but exactly GFDL.
>
> Well, if the two licenses provide exactly the same protections for
> content creator and content consumer, and if the two licenses provide
> the same rights and responsibilities to both parties, with no
> additions/alterations, then the exact wording of the two licenses is
> inconsequential. That we we can say that the rights, permissions, and
> responsibilities are identical, that the spirit of the two are
> identical, and that the two licenses can be used interchangably.
>
> In other words, by properly modifying the licenses, derivative works
> can be both "exactly CC-BY-SA" and "exactly GFDL" at the same time.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, although it's probably not
quite that simple. The GFDL says derivatives have to be released under
the GFDL, not under something which offers the same protections as the
GFDL. Similarly with CC-BY-SA. There might be some way around that be
simply dual licensing everything under both. If you want to modify
something, you have to use both licenses, if you just want to use it,
you can use either. (Although, that would actually mean people just
using it would be using it under CC-BY-ND, not -SA, which makes my
head spin.)

What say we wait and see what the licenses say, huh?