[Foundation-l] status of the licensing update

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally I can't fully agree. Where no new problems are
> introduced, and old obstacles are removed, the move can
> be a good thing in itself, irregardless of the ambiguities
> that were there before, and still remain.

<snip>

> I disagree quite clearly that it should be a pre-condition.
>
> I don't think keeping an ongoing discussion of the issue
> concurrently would necessarily be counterproductive.
>
> But when it comes down to brass tacks, for reasonable
> people it should be enough that CC-BY-SA is a vastly
> better license for what we do. Period.

<snip>

Relicensing is not free.  It adds a new layer of potential confusion,
exposes us to various legal uncertainties, and generates non-trivial
hassle (not least of which is the sometimes-but-not-always dual
licensing scheme that we would have to keep track of).

I do not consider those issues insurmountable.

However, if we are going to relicense (and ultimately I think we
should get away from the GFDL) then it is also important that we get
something useful at the end of the day.  You say: "CC-BY-SA is a
vastly better license for what we do", but that is only true if
CC-BY-SA is demonstrably useful.  The point I am trying to make is
that in order for CC-BY-SA to be useful we should be prepared to
concretely show examples of how it can and should be used.  If we
can't do that, then it largely is not useful.

It is fine to talk abstractly about all the great CC-BY-SA content in
the world, and wanting to remove barriers to use, etc.  But let's be
concrete.  How do we use CC-BY-SA to expand our content (for example,
when importing content: who gets attributed, where, and how)?  How do
others use CC-BY-SA when they want to copy from Wikipedia?

I'm hopeful we can answer those questions, but I consider being able
to answer them as a clear prerequisite to establishing whether or not
CC-BY-SA will actually be useful.  Failing that, we would simply be
replacing one crummy license that no one knows how to use with another
somewhat less crummy license that still no one knows how to use, and
that sort of a transaction would be almost entirely a waste of time.

Given the hassle and complexities involved, I'd be very disappointed
if at the end of the process we still weren't able to tell people the
proper way to use the license.

-Robert Rohde