[Foundation-l] Licensing interim update

[geni]

2009/2/3 Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> Since Robert raised the question where we stand and what our timeline
> looks like, I want to briefly recap:
>
> * Because the attribution issue is quite divisive, I want us to
> dedicate some more time to reconsidering and revising our approach.
> * I'm developing a simple LimeSurvey-based survey to get a feel on
> prevalent opinions regarding some of the attribution-relevant
> questions from a sample of contributors.

Copyright law and the terms of CC-BY-SA are not subject to community opinion.
>
 Even on
> the attribution question, it seems that there is wide agreement that
> for online re-use, hyperlinks to a page history or author credit page
> are an appropriate mechanism for attribution. It's sensible to me, and
> apparently most people, that other people's web use should be treated
> very similarly to our own.

As long as the credit page is hosted locally this would generally be
the case online yes.

> The fundamentally divisive question is whether principles of web use
> can be applied to some of the other real world use scenarios we've
> encountered: DVD, print, spoken versions, etc.

I think you are confused over what the principles of web use actually are.


> An important counterpoint is that these media are among the ones which
> are the most important to reach disadvantaged communities - people
> without Internet access, blind users, etc. - and that any onerous
> requirements are arguably going to diminish our ability to spread free
> knowledge. So, there are moral arguments on both sides. Moreover, as
> I've noted, many names only really have meaning in the context of web
> presence in the first place.

This isn't relevant to the legal position.

> commit us to work
> together to provide attribution records of manageable length using
> smart algorithms as well as documenting minimally complex attribution
> implementation,

Knocking out most of the bot flagged names (ram-bot probably qualifies
for credit although there are some complications there) and any edit
summery that mentions AWB would probably take care of that issue on
en.

>and permit by-URL attribution in circumstances where
> we don't have a better answer yet.

Again this isn't legal.

>I worry, in this scenario, about
> instruction and complexity creep over time, so the fundamental
> principles of simplicity would need to be articulated well.

"reasonable to the medium or means" you cannot go beyond that. About
the only thing you can do to enforce simplicity beyond the terms of
the license is to ban copyright notices (as in that unfortunate "keep
intact all copyright notices for the Work" statement).

>And I want
> to make sure that we don't embark on a compromise which achieves
> nothing: that the vocal minority who feel very strongly about
> attribution-by-name under all circumstances will continue to object,
> that we will increase complexity for re-users, and that we will not
> actually persuade anyone to support the approach who wouldn't
> otherwise do so.

You are optimistic. They could just sue the first refuser to think
that any statements beyond "reasonable to the medium or means" had any
legal validity.


-- 
geni