[Foundation-l] status of the licensing update

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/2/19 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com>:
>> Without disagreeing on the importance of attribution standards
>> per se, it is clearly inaccurate to say that they signify how we
>> interpret the license. Contributors can be asked to waive
>> rights to content they add to the site (where they are the
>> sole originators of the material, and not merely importing
>> content that has already been published elsewhere) even
>> above and beyond the terms of the specific license, and equally
>> they can be asked to not pursue some rights specified in the
>> license, where such contractual stipulations are legal. Not that
>> it is clear how enforceable such stipulations or waivers
>> would be, if reusers asserted a different understanding
>> of the license and/or the IP laws of their specific jurisdiction.
>
> But sometimes people will be important content that has already been
> published elsewhere. At best, we're going to have people having to go
> through the edit history line by line if they want to use content
> under GFDL, if we add in addition terms of use people will have to go
> through line by line if they want to do anything using them too. It's
> really not an option.

On this issue, I largely agree with Thomas, though I would frame the
question differently.

In my opinion, it is incumbent upon us to give examples of how we
believe third parties can legally and practically reuse WMF content by
exercising rights under CC-BY-SA.  If we can't, in our collective
wisdom, agree on how third parties ought to be able to accomplish that
under the new license, then the license is probably inadequate for our
needs.

Now we don't have to cover every way that CC-BY-SA might be used.  And
we don't have to go through every possible complication that might
occur with wiki content.  But I do think we must be prepared to give
concrete examples of how the license may be used in common
applications, and that requires being willing to confront the question
of "reasonable" attribution.

If someone comes to us and says: "I want to print a copy of [[France]]
in my book.  What is a reasonable way to comply with the license?",
then we really ought to be able to answer that question.  If we can't
agree on an acceptable answer to that question under CC-BY-SA, then we
probably shouldn't be considering adopting it.

For the record, I am open to the idea that we might well be able to
get nearly everyone to agree on a set of "reasonable" usage guidelines
consistent with the terms and spirit of CC-BY-SA, but I agree with
Thomas that it is important that we address that either before or
concurrent with the relicensing effort.

-Robert Rohde