Toby wrote:
.... Encyclopaedias and textbooks have a quite different style, and I'd argue that any text that isn't completely rewritten is a mistake. ...
The difference in style is primarily organizational and related to focus. That means that a great many sections of Wikipedia articles can used in a textbook. To abandon the GFDL and thus ignore the largest open content text resource in the world is a grave mistake.
I've already mentioned /several/ times now that our long-term goal should be to work with the writers of the various copyleft viral licenses to make them compatible with each other whereever possible. For example, all that would be needed from the GNU and Creative Common people to make their respective copyleft viral licenses compatible would be for both of them to make new versions that explicitly state that text from the other corresponding copyleft viral license is compatible. That would make it possible for GNU FDL text to be incorporated into Creative Commons Share Alike text and vice versa.
Until then we are stuck with the GNU FDL (and I have yet to see a compelling argument to abandon that).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)