[Foundation-l] CC-BY-SA migration checklist

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Dec 3, 2007 7:15 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > No. "History" is an invariant section, and the standard wikimedia
> > copyright statement says that our work is released under the GFDL with
> > no invariant sections.
>
> "History" is not an invariant section.

My interpretation of this could certainly be mistaken. I base it on
this passage:

"A Secondary Section is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall
subject ... The relationship could be a matter of historical
connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
them."

With the "History" section being a named appendix that deals
exclusively with the relationship of the publishers/authors to the
document. The GFDL does not explicitly say one way or the other
whether this is the case.

> > Also, section 4(b) of the GFDL states that an
> > author may waive their right to be listed as an author on the title
> > page. We encourage people not to invoke this right. We also don't go
> > out of our way to alert them that they can. Also, if you treat
> > wikipedia as a single work (ie, a complete encyclopedia) then the
> > title page for all of wikipedia would only contain the names of 5
> > authors. I think the board could select an appropriate 5, if there was
> > an issue.
> >
> All of this is correct, but tangential to what I said.

Not tangential at all. You said that the GFDL "Requires" that we list
at least 5 authors on the title page. My point here is that this is
not necessarily the case. authors can opt-out of this requirement, and
to my knowledge every wikipedia contributor to date has done so (or at
least not explicitly opted-in).

--Andrew Whitworth