[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> For myself
> I would in fact probably like to soften my stance a mite. A
> link to a web page, if it is specific enough (such as the
> history of the article), may well be a - not ideal / but will do
> in a pinch - solution.
>
> What has weakened my opposition to this approach, is that
> I thought of software distributions which only provide
> source on demand, and are considered compliant with
> a non-expansive interpretation of open source.

Thats my perspective for history information, as well as access to the
preferred form for editing, they are 'source code', I'd even drawn the
same parallel to software.

GPLv3 even relaxes the requirement for distributors to provide future
access to source in some cases (verbatim reproductions; though I'd
expect different rules in a free content license). A parallel
structure, along with really strong and permissive excerpting rules,
would create great justice in a future free content license.

I also hold the same view for attribution, *but only* in cases where
the most correct attribution is either too complex for reasonable
reproduction in some media (sometimes true for Wikipedia text), or not
easily available (always true for Wikipedia text as things stand
today).

A good practice, perhaps one worth codifying in a future free content
license, might be to be make it clear that the URL is not the author
with an attribution like:   "Multiple Authors
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/somearticle)".  This method makes it
clear that the complete attribution was omitted for brevity, and not
as a claim that "Wikipedia" wrote the article (an outrageous claim in
some cases, especially for works which originated in other compatibly
licensed locations).

For something like the reproduction of a isolated common photograph
with a single author, a failure to directly make available the name of
the author would be surprising and inconsistant with common practice
as well as unnecessary. So it shouldn't be done there.  (Nor should it
be done for the frequent case of Wikipedia articles with single
effective authors, but we currently have no way of easily identifying
them and I do not think it's reasonable to place that burden on the
reusers - I think this is a burden that should be shifted somewhat
towards authors⋯ If you don not make your attribution clear, don't
expect other people to name you.).