[Foundation-l] GFDL and Relicensing

Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton at gmail.com
Thu Nov 22 12:18:20 UTC 2007


On 22/11/2007, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Robert Horning writes:
>
> >  I've seen other websites try this with Wikimedia content, and I don't
> > know how you give "full notice to the community" of a license change.
>
> I regard this as essentially a trivial problem. You could put it on
> the front page of each language's Wikipedia, for example.  Those who
> never see the Project front pages might not see such a notice -- but
> they probably don't know we're having a fundraiser, either.

What does a fundraiser have to do with it? Are you suggesting that
people that don't donate don't deserve to have their legal rights
respected?

> Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that the set of contributors who both
> (a) insist on an old version of GFDL and (b) care about it enough to
> remove content if migration happens, and (c) wouldn't hear about the
> migration is a very, very, small set of contributors.

It only takes one.

> >  If you are modifying the license
> > terms outside of the terms of the GFDL, you need to renegotiate with
> > that contributor...including all anonymous contributors.
>
> I don't believe this is required, as a practical matter.  Consider,
> for example, credit-card companies. They change the terms of user
> agreements all the time, unilaterally. They issue long, complicated
> notices when they do this. Amazingly, this triggers neither mass
> departures nor massive negotiations with individuals. And they are
> dealing with far larger populations than we are.
>
> I agree that you're right in theory, of course. In practice, not so
> big a problem.

Credit card companies have a list of people they need to notify. We
don't. They also have a clause reserving the right to make unilateral
changes (Question: Do credit card companies in Germany have similar
clauses, or are they invalid under the same principle? If not, what's
the difference?), we're not sure we have that right internationally,
which could cause serious problems.

> I of course support your prerogative to do this.  I think that any
> migration has to accommodate GFDL "ideologists" and allow for their
> removal of their content if they believe the project is not adequately
> copyleft for them.

You've yet to describe a practical way of removing content.

> At the end of the day, what you have to ask yourself is this:  is our
> primary purpose as Wikipedians to get the knowledge out to the world
> for free (and in a way that keeps it free), or is our purpose to
> privilege an older version of GFDL regardless of whether it inhibits
> our ability to provide the world information for free?  I tend to
> think our purpose is more the first than the second.

You're the lawyer, but I'm pretty sure the law doesn't care what our
primary purpose is. We still have to obey it, even if it goes against
what we're trying to do.



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