[Foundation-l] GFDL and relicensing

[Mike Godwin]

Thomas Dalton writes:

>  Ok, it only takes one *rich person*. Point stands.

Most rich people got (or stay rich) rich by making smart decisions  
about how to invest their money. Investing in a copyright lawsuit with  
no obvious remedy is not exactly a smart investment decision. And rich  
people can afford lawyers who will tell them just this.

> It's a guess, it doesn't really have much of a basis, just gut
> feeling. I would have called it an estimate otherwise.

Okay, I am grateful for your admission that you have no facts in  
support in this point.

> The flaw in Pascal's Wager is that it incorrectly assumes zero cost,
> what's that got to do with anything?

That's actually not the flaw in Pascal's Wager, but why do you assume  
there's "zero cost" associated with *not* migrating Wikipedia content  
to a version of GFDL that makes it more useful?

> Why would I care about the plaintiff's costs? There are plenty of
> people in this world with more money than sense.

Yes, and by all means we should let our decisionmaking be held hostage  
by those with more money than sense -- or at least now that's what I  
understand your argument to be.

> Removal of content isn't impossible, it's just impossible without
> causing a great deal of harm to Wikipedia.

Effectively the same argument, in my view.  "It's possible, but the  
consequences would be infinitely terrible!"  Pascal's Wager again.

> As for registering
> copyright, isn't that US law? We're not talking about the US here. Do
> France and Germany have similar requirements?

Well, we'd have a very interesting case if the copyright holder  
proceeded in France or Germany to judgment and then tried to enforce  
the judgment in a U.S. court.  Multinational litigation is a great  
hobby for millionaires, I guess, but not for most people.

> It costs the plaintiffs money. Something lots of people have and the
> WMF doesn't.

I'll be on the lookout for millionaire Wikipedians who'd rather  
destroy WMF than allow relicensing under a new version of GFDL. I'm  
sure that's a very large class of individuals.


--Mike