[Foundation-l] Re-licensing

[Klaus Graf]

By repeating false things they will be not more true.

IT'S ABSOLUTELY FALSE THAT GFDL HAS A PRINCIPAL AUTHOR CLAUSE.

This clause only refers to a title page. READ THE LICENSE PLEASE.
Wikipedia hasn't such a thing.

Attribution in the GNU FDL is done by copyright notices or the section
called History.

"To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
the License in the document and put the following copyright and
license notices just after the title page:
    Copyright (c)  YEAR  YOUR NAME.
    Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
    under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
    or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
    with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
    A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
    Free Documentation License".

This means: Follwowing this way of attribution the name of the autor
can never dissapear.

Verbatim copying: "You may copy and distribute the Document in any
medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this
License, the COPYRIGHT NOTICES, and the license notice saying this
License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies" (my
empasis).

Modification: "D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document."

Important is the following clause:

"I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and
add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there
is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating
the title, year, AUTHORS, and publisher of the Document as given on
its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as
stated in the previous sentence." (my emphasis)

It is possible to ignore this? I do not think so. There is a strong
obligation that every GFDL document which is modified must have a
section entitled History. The only thing in the Wikipedia which can be
regarded as a section history is the version history which is also the
way in which authors are given credit.

One entry with the name/IP of the contributor and the date in the
version history has two functions: 1. it is a substitution of the
copyright noctice, 2. it is part of the section history.

A lot of people in the German Wikipedia believe that the only way to
fulfill the GFDL strictly is to reproduce the whole version history
resp. the names of all contributors.

"Das Wikipedia Lexikon in einem Band" was a cooperation between
Bertelsmann and the German chapter. It has a long list of ALL
contributors see e.g.
http://books.google.com/books?id=BaWKVqiUH-4C&pg=PT979

The Directmedia Offline Wikipedia CDs/DVDs have reproductions of the
version histories.

I would like to say one thing very clear:

IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE AUTHOR AND NOT A THIRD PARTY RIGHT TO CHOOSE
THE WAY OF ATTRIBUTION IN THE CC-BY-SA LICENSE.

The attribution in the GFDL is described by the license. WMF or FSF
has NO RIGHT to choose a specific interpretation.

WMF has NO RIGHT to relicense the old content according to the
proposed "Copyright Policy" containing the CC-BY-SA attribution
"expectations".

Each user has to agree EXPLICITELY to the "Copyright Policy" as part
of the contract between the WMF and him. May be it is legal to make
this agreement valid for older contributions of the same user. But the
policy cannot bind users no more active.

Third party CC-BY-SA text content cannot be imported if there is'nt an
EXPLICITE statement that the creator allows the attribution   policy.
It is possible to substitude the normal attribution by giving instead
an internet adress BUT ONLY THE CREATOR CAN CHOOSE THIS POSSIBILITY.
If you will import CC-BY-SA content you have to obey the author's way
of attribution. If there is no specification the name has to be
mentioned. For this contribution the attribution policy (incl. link to
a list of authors if more than five) ISN'T VALID!

Klaus Graf