[Textbook-l] different open content licenses

[Daniel Mayer]

Toby wrote:
>That's the whole point of my paragraph,
>which was an example of the sort of detail 
>that we must think through. Because they 
>might borrow from each other, they must 
>switch over together.

That would require the permission of every copyright holder of the text. For 
older textbooks or ones that incorporate a good deal of Wikipedia text this 
will be impossible.

>I don't want to rely on that when submitting material 
>that I write; I want it to be available to everybody (or 
>as many as possible), not just to GNU FDL users.

Then on your user page state that everything you write that is not a 
derivative work is under the CCSA or the public domain for that matter. 

Each book will have to be under the GNU FDL, CCSA or a dual license. So 
downstream users will still be limited; a downstream user wanting to 
incorporate part of a CCSA Wikibook into their GNU FDL book will be blocked. 
If however we continue to promote the use of the GNU FDL then that will 
become the default free content license for everybody to use. We have already 
uncovered a great many GFDLd textbooks so far.

>Not that I mean to criticise your idea entirely; 
>we can refine it. And we should present it to 
>RMS when we try to win him over. Unfortunately, 
>I'm more convinced than ever that we never will,

I'll concede the point that this will be an uphill battle - but it will be a 
battle worth fighting. 

>That's also why text copied directly from WP won't 
>usually be wanted in the first place.

I very seriously doubt that. I very often open up one of my many textbooks to 
use as sources for a Wikipedia article. For example I opened by freshman 
biology textbook to write [[centipede]]. I skipped to the right chapter and 
found a description of the group as part of one section - I simply rewrote 
it. In the reverse process all I would have to do is copy the Wikipedia 
article and place it in that point of the textbook. I can go on and on with 
many other examples where I have taken info from textbooks in similar chunks.

172 is also famous for doing this already /within/ Wikipedia. He likes to copy 
text from several related articles and he intregrates into one overview 
article that flows from point to point - just like a textbook. Check out the 
[[History of the United States]] article to see what I mean (this style is 
annoying in Wikipedia but would be most welcome in Wikibooks). 

So a great many textbooks can at least be partially constructed by organizing 
Wikipedia text. 

>The main reason not to use the GNU FDL alone
>is -- and has been since Karl first brought it up --
>so that /other/ people will be able to use our work.
>We can't anticipate now whether GNU or CC is the future,
>so we should keep our work open to as much as possible.
>Using the GNU FDL only is a limit on future users' freedoms.

Again - each book has to choose one license or another (or dual). Each of the 
singular options limits downstream usage to a single license path and the 
dual option severely limits what can be used by the book itself. 

We have already created an Empire with GNU FDL text - let's continue building 
that Empire. We are big enough already that we can justify what we do simply 
because we do it. We are borg. 

>If keeping it simple were above all else,
>then we would just put everything in the 
>public domain. 

But then the text could be incorporated into proprietary works and we would 
not be able to benefit from any improvements they make. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)