[Foundation-l] GFDL and relicensing

[Andrew Whitworth]

> I imagine most people who have been contributing for any
> length of time share my view that our contributions are
> effectively public domain and, regardless of what I, the
> Foundation or indeed anyone else does, have been and will
> be used in many different ways without the slightest bit of
> respect for the GFDL or any other license.

I agree with this point entirely. The average contributor couldn't
care less about the license, and it's my experience that licensing in
general has done more to hinder contributions then it has to secure
them. Or, at the very least, the hindrances are more apparent then the
securities are.

Besides a few GFDL ideologists, most contributors wouldn't care at all
if we switched licenses, and many would welcome the freedom of a less
restrictive licensing scheme. This is certainly the case on wikibooks
where many book donations have been slowed or even canceled because of
licensing problems. I would venture to guess that most of the problems
associated with such a license switch would come externally, not
internally.

--Andrew Whitworth