[Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal

[Erik Moeller]

Because I don't think it's good to discuss attribution as an abstract
principle, just as an example, the author attribution for the article
[[France]] is below, excluding IP addresses. According to the view
that attribution needs to be given to each pseudonym, this entire
history would have to be included with every copy of the article.
Needless to say, in a print product, this would occupy a very
significant amount of space. Needless to say, equally, it's a
significant obligation for a re-user. And, of course, Wikipedia keeps
growing and so do its attribution records.

The notion that it's actually useful to anyone in that list is dubious
at best. A vast number of pseudonyms below have no meaning except for
their context in Wikipedia. I think requiring this for, e.g., a
wiki-reader on countries makes it significantly less likely for people
to create such products, and I think that the benefit of free
knowledge weighs greater than the benefit of credit to largely
pseudonymous individuals who have never, at any point, been promised
or given to understand that their name would be given a significant
degree of visibility through the lifetime of the article they
contribute to.

The idea that we can meaningfully define the number of cases where
this requirement is onerous and the number where it isn't through
simple language is not at all obvious to me. Whether something is
onerous is in part a function of someone's willingness and ability to
invest effort, not whether they are creating something that's intended
for online and offline use. Ironically, heavy attribution requirements
advantage publishing houses with armies of lawyers over individuals.
People who don't care about rules will ignore any requirement we set
(and realistically we have no energy or ability to enforce those
requirements in most cases); unreasonable requirements primarily
affect people who are trying to do the right thing, like any
unnecessary emergence of bureaucracy.

But, I do not want to rehash every  single argument a hundred times.
As I said in a different thread, I think it may be useful to include
at least a preference poll in the licensing vote to better understand
where different people are on this issue. Attribution-by-URL under
certain circumstances is consistent with many people's expectations
and preference, but clearly not with everyone's. If there's a
predominant conception of an acceptable attribution regime, that would
make developing a consistent model easier.

Erik

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