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

[Erik Moeller]

2009/1/8 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> We discussing a move to CC-****BY****-SA, attribution is still
> required. I'm not an expert on the attribution requirements of
> CC-BY-SA (I've just read them, but it isn't entirely clear to me
> whether Original Author is, in the context of a wiki, just the latest
> editor or all editors),

My reading of the Attribution requirements per CC-BY-SA (4.c) in the
context of a wiki is as follows:

* every substantial edit is a copyrighted creative work;
* every such edit must be, per the terms of the license and the terms
of use of the wiki, made available under CC-BY-SA;
* per the terms of that license, if the edit is originally created for
the wiki, the person submitting it is its "Original Author" (while the
combined work is an Adaptation per CC-BY-SA).

A wiki page would therefore have multiple "Original Authors" per
CC-BY-SA.

> but it seems clear to me that we can require
> people to link back to Wikipedia (in particular, the history page) so
> that everyone is, at least indirectly, attributed. Given that that's
> how most people are using the GFDL anyway, I really don't see the
> problem.

I agree. The attribution requirements in CC-BY-SA are reasonably
flexible, and we
can specify in the terms of use that e.g. with more than five authors,
attribution happens through a link to the History page.

I want to add something which I forgot to point out (and Kat reminded
me of): Requiring that authors be named where it can be reasonably
expected is especially important in the context of media files such as
sounds and images which very frequently have just a single author who
can reasonably expect to be attributed. I think the above approach
addresses this in a medium-independent fashion.
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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