[Textbook-l] Citizendium License (Was: [EWW] EditWikipediaWeek)

[Andrew Whitworth]

> As for the dual issues...I'm just after some clarification...does
> Wikibooks actually stop someone from putting 'This book is licensed
> under the FDL and <insert license here>'? when putting a book on
> Wikibooks?

No, we havent ever stopped somebody from creating a book under these
dual-licensing schemes. Part of it was, I think, due to our own
misunderstandings of intricacies of the various licenses. To date,
however, there have only been a handful of books that have been
licensed in this manner. The issue has been raised most recently
because a contributor at Wikibooks wants to re-license a particular
book that was created from scratch on wikibooks. Since the contributor
himself is the only contributor to the book (or he has received
explicit permission from all other contributors). it should be
possible to relicense the content. What is not certain about that
situation, however, is whether wikibooks can continue to host the book
if the license changes (or if the book would need to be forked to a
new host).

Dual-licensing most often when people donate books to wikibooks, and
want them to be released under very free licenses. Because the books
tend to be mostly complete when they are donated, they are frequently
not edited (much) except for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors.
There is, of course, no rule that these books cannot be edited nor
modified more aggressively.

If we decide that the dual-licensing of these existing books is a
problem, a template could easily be employed that says "This book is
released under the GFDL, but a previous revision of this book is also
cross-licensed under license X" That way, we can continue development
as usual, but the material can be forked from a known "safe" point.

--Andrew Whitworth