[Foundation-l] New wiki creation moratorium

[Simetrical]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>  "require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project
>  created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do
>  you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?

I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft
of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something.  There was to be a new clause
that went something like this:

"If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration
on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date
June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may
choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead
of this license."

The provision was, obviously, meant more or less to target Wikipedia
and offshoots of it, with the understanding that at the time they had
no better options but that now they should move to a better license.
But on the other hand, the date was presumably added because the idea
would be new wikis should skip the GFDL altogether and move to the
wiki license: this was meant to be a transition clause only.

I'm not on any committees and have no special standing or knowledge
and have not signed any nondisclosure agreements, so the above may be
nonsense.  But if the issue is something along those lines, it would
make a considerable amount of sense as a reason not to start any new
wikis for a few months if necessary, if there was reluctance from the
other participants to move up the date too much.  It's not really a
big price to pay.

It's unfortunate that the FSF (or whoever is responsible) is
apparently being secretive about this.  But given that Wikimedia does
not rule the world, it's inevitable that it will on occasion have to
agree to things that ideally they wouldn't like to.  A totally
uncompromising position on things like transparency is not the most
productive to adopt for the goals of Wikimedia.  Assume good faith,
and in the case of officers of Wikimedia, it would be nice to assume
competence as well -- until proven otherwise, of course.  If the facts
can't be shared now, wait until they can be before you judge.