[Foundation-l] Agreement between WMF and O'Reilly Media about Wikipedia: The Missing Manual on Wikipedia?

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/1/28 Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk>:
> 2009/1/28 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>
>>> Yes, along with all the other imported GFDL material... oh, wait,
>>> sorry, I mean all the material which a contributor has chosen to
>>> license under GFDL 1.2 or later... oh, wait. How is this a special
>>> case?
>>>
>>> The CC switch, when and if it happens, will be complex enough without
>>> inventing extra problems!
>>
>> It is imported GFDL material. Which is a problem. Normaly we have very
>> little imported stuff so not something I worry about overmuch but
>> someone might want to give a heads up to the publishing company and
>> author that we will be looking to switch it (and since it is imported
>> we can't do that automagicaly).
>
> This is pretty silly.
>
> The author is... an active Wikipedia user, and has been for three and
> a half years. All his GDFL contributions made to Wikipedia can be
> relicensed without any fuss, but his writing first published elsewhere
> under *exactly the same license* and then re-uploaded, by himself,
> licensing his own intellectual property and ticking all the implicit
> boxes in exactly the same way as if he had first written it here,
> can't be?
>
> But even if it weren't, I'm stull confused over how we have the right
> to use one set of GFDL v.1.2 or later contributions, and not the
> other. It is, after all, *exactly the same license*...

The new GFDL license only allows relicensing under CC-BY-SA of things
either published for the first time on the wiki or added to the wiki
before the new license was announced. Since this was published in a
book first and added to Wikipedia since the new license was announced,
it isn't eligible (without explicit permission from the copyright
owner - which shouldn't be difficult to get).