[Foundation-l] GFDL and relicensing

[Michael Bimmler]

On Nov 21, 2007 6:50 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On Nov 21, 2007 6:48 PM, Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > <devil's advocate> What if the FSF decided that the next version of
> > the GFDL stipulates "As of now, all works under the GFDL are sole
> > propriety of the FSF"? What would be the recourse of the authors who
> > have agreed to "any later versions"?</devil's advocate>
>
> The existing content would still be available under the old terms,
> _and_ under the new ones. So, effectively, new licenses can take away
> restrictions, but can only add them with limited effectiveness (the
> effectiveness would be derived from projects like Wikipedia adopting
> the new version).
>
>

[NB: I'm writing this question just out of the blue, without prior research]:

Following up on Delphine's point: Let's imagine that the FSF decides
that the new GFDL basically says "All GFDL works are to be treated as
if they were in the public domain" (= All GFDL works are equal to PD
works).
Let's further imagine that the majority of Wikipedia contributors
likes this approach and Wikipedia adopts the new GFDL version.
Wouldn't this mean that the contributions of prior contributors would
then also be available under these new, similar-to-PD terms and, if
yes, wouldn't this possibly violate the spirit of the contributor's
decision (viz. to submit them under GFDL terms and not anything less
restrictive?)

Michael

> --
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> Erik
>
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