[Foundation-l] GFDL and relicensing

[Mike Godwin]

Anthony writes:

>  Well, let's take an example.  [[User:Alex756]]
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alex756) is a lawyer who would like
> to revoke his contributions under the GFDL.  His contributions exceed
> 5000.  Surely there's a good chance he would take such an opportunity
> to opt-out.  Imagine the work it'd take just to comply with that one
> request.

I'm imagining it.  It doesn't strike me as an impossible problem,  
especially if Alex cared enough about his contributions to help us  
remove them.  But my belief is that the migration we're talking about  
is one that Alex would not object to, since the idea is migrate to a  
new license that is consistent with the mission of the earlier  
versions of the GFDL, but better-designed for wikis.

> I don't think anyone who
> claims to know with a large degree of certainty how such a case would
> turn out is being at all honest.

I don't know anyone who claims anything with "a large degree of  
certainty," but one of the functions of the law is to generate  
predictable outcomes.  And I also think that anyone who's quick to  
accuse others of dishonesty probably isn't Assuming Good Faith.


--Mike