[Foundation-l] Creative Commons CC-BY-SA Draft Statement of Intent

[Erik Moeller]

On 4/6/08, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>  I didn't hear would we stay at CC-BY-SA 3.5/4.0 forever or we would
>  have a possibility to switch to some newer license. If yes, how would
>  we do that?

CC-BY-SA contains a "later version" migration clause, similar to our
use of FDL. I expect that we'd update regularly, since updates
typically simply address perceived legal & structural problems in
prior versions.

>  I didn't hear an explanation what are our options if something goes
>  wrong. Would we have a possibility to switch to another license if we
>  are not content with some future version of CC-BY-SA.

The situation here is not substantively different than with GFDL.
We'll accept changes if they make sense to us, and otherwise we won't.
The Statement of Intent gives us reasonably broad assurances that
future changes will be in the spirit of the license, and specifically,
that they will not weaken the copyleft provision of the license.
That's all you can really ask for, short of maintaining the license
yourself, which has its own problems (license proliferation, increased
dependence on WMF as an organization to always act in good faith,
etc.).

>  However, I don't like the fact that I've got all important
>  informations in private talks.

WMF has been maximally transparent throughout the process, sharing
information from third parties when permitted to do so. FDL 1.3 is
still undergoing active revision, and I haven't seen the latest
changes myself. The real discussion will become possible when the FSF
releases it, which I hope will happen Real Soon Now.

-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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