[Foundation-l] Attribution survey, first results

[Thomas Dalton]

(Last email, since I received this I was I was typing what was meant
to be the last one. Then I'll really stop.)

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
> What if the FSF could be convinced to come up with a GFDL 1.4 which makes it
> legal?

They can't. The GFDL requires future versions to be in the same spirit.

>> I'm not a statistician, someone else can work out how large a majority
>> is needed from a sample size of 570 to be confident (at the 95% level,
>> say?) that a majority of the population as a whole agrees.
>
>
> So if 51% of Wikipedians wanted no attribution (say everyone was polled),
> and the government made it legal, then the other 49% should lose their right
> to attribution?

If the government (or governments, depending on if you care about
non-US jurisdictions) makes it legal, then they have no (legal) right
to attribution. Moral rights (in the sense of the dictionary
definitions of the individual words, not the legalistic sense of the
phrase - let's not get into *that* argument again!) are completely
subjective and are very difficult to have a meaningful debate about.
That said, I'm not sure I would consider 51% sufficient for such a
decision (I know that somewhat contradicts my previous statement).

>> Order of difficulty is not the same as order of happiness.  I would be
>> > happier with "no credit" than "credit to Wikipedia".
>>
>> Could you explain your reasons for that?
>
> Probably not easily.  We'd have to get way off topic for this list (and I'd
> have to make statements that would hurt people's feelings and be seen as
> inappropriate).

In other words, you've had a falling out with the Wikimedia movement
and don't feel it deserves the credit for your work, even if that
means no-one gets the credit. Fair enough.