[Foundation-l] GFDL Q&A update and question

[Erik Moeller]

2009/1/8 Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>:
> I'm looking for guidance of the sort: Doing X, Y, and Z, is generally
> sufficient to comply with CC-BY-SA.  It need not be minimally
> sufficient, and probably shouldn't be, since any advice we give ought
> to be at a level that is clearly black and white, and not gray.  Maybe
> we necessarily limit that advice to text and certain traditional print
> mediums, but I do think there needs to be something direct about
> acceptable standards for attribution.

I agree. We'll try to formulate that attribution guideline as part of
the full proposal (and it'll be discussed further from there before we
go into voting). As I mentioned earlier up-thread, it'll likely look
similar to what is suggested here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions#Proposed_attribution_text

Codifying a similar clause in the Wikimedia-wide terms of use is fully
consistent with attribution requirements of the GFDL. There seems to
be some confusion related to the "History" section of GFDL documents,
the purpose of which is clearly change-tracking, not attribution, as
its preservation is only explicitly required for modified versions. A
reasonable attribution expectation of someone who licensed edits under
GFDL would be to be attributed where possible (i.e. where there are
five authors or fewer), and to be otherwise referred to the full list
of authors.

Once these attribution requirements are consistent and clear, it
should be more straightforward to bring some internal use cases into
compliance (e.g. transwiki copying, attribution in the page footer,
dumps).
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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