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

[Robert Horning]

adam hyde wrote:
>> Maybe we (the royal we, the WMF) need to put some pressure on the FSF
>> to create a new GFDL version that is not so inhibitive as what we are
>> currently using. Our copyright notice already states that content is
>> released under "all future versions of the GFDL", so the transition
>> would be transparent. Since WMF is one of the biggest users of the
>> GFDL, i think we could exert that kind of pressure.
>>     
>
> i think that pressure is already being felt with the Free Software
> Foundations draft the new FDL and SFDL
> http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html
> http://gplv3.fsf.org/sfdl-draft-2006-09-26.html
>
> 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?
>
> adam
>
>   

I'll give a concrete rather than a hypothetical example:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scratch/Content_License

This is simultaneously licensed under both the GFDL and the Creative 
Commons Share Alike license.  The page explains the reasons (for 
compatability with other websites where the content may be "forked" or 
moved at some point in the future.... or at least shared).

I brought this issue up a couple of times in the Staff Lounge (now 
Reading Room) and as can be seen from the overwhelming response on the 
discussion area of the above Wikibooks page, it is hardly what could be 
called a controversial decision.  But then again it isn't that big of a 
Wikibook that has made a huge splash in the Wikibooks world, much less 
among Wikimedia projects.

As I pointed out in the reading room, the worst issue that comes from a 
dual-licensed Wikibook is mainly an issue of forking, where another 
website (or other publisher...it doesn't have to be a website) that does 
not allow (or chooses to ignore) the GFDL in any form can publish the 
book, this particular book, under the second license terms.  In that 
case, any changes made in the other content format won't be added back 
to the Wikibooks site, nor if the GFDL license is ignored or purposely 
left out in the fork can anybody who has the content know that a GFDL 
version is available.  For purists about the GPL and GFDL like Richard 
Stallman, this would be a huge issue.  Also note that the GFDL is 
intentionally written to avoid this sort of issue, but it isn't illegal 
as long as all of the participants know about how the content is 
licensed ahead of time.

In the case of this book about Scratch, the dual-licensing format was 
set up when the Wikibook was established.  This is not something that 
can be done after a large number of people, particularly anonymous 
contributors, start adding content.

The worst situation I saw was with the Strategy Wiki 
(http://strategywiki.org/) when they "took over" the editing of the 
gaming guides on Wikibooks.  The participants of that website were 
disenchanted (to put it mildly) with the GFDL, and wanted to re-license 
all of the content to a Creative Commons license.  Specifically to the 
point, they wanted to put up some sort of licensing regime that kept the 
GFDL for all of the older content (much of which was originally on 
Wikibooks) and "force" new contributions under the terms of the new 
content license.  The idea was that the older GFDL'd content would 
eventually "fade away" and be replaced almost completely with content 
under the new license.  This is a dual-license concept that is quite a 
bit different, but from my reading of the GFDL was something that is 
impossible without the explicit permission from all of the copyright 
holders.  Since much of the Wikibooks content was added by anonymous 
contributors, not to mention by many registered users of Wikibooks who 
didn't even know their content was "moved" to the Strategy Wiki (I hope 
most know about this by now, but not all of them do), there was little 
in the way of an opportunity to voice an opinion on the terms of the 
relicense.   BTW, to note, the Strategy Wiki is still GFDL-only, so this 
potential copyright issue was diffused by the proponents of the CC 
license backing down and accepting the GFDL.

The only "escape hatch" that exists right now with the GFDL in terms of 
relicensing is the "or later version" clause that allows an updated 
version of the GFDL to be used instead of the current version.  In this 
regard, nearly all Wikimedia content is dual-licensed with the current 
version of the GFDL and future versions...to demonstrate the power of 
dual-licensing concepts.  BTW, it should be noted that there are many 
within the free software community that have removed the "or later 
version" clause from some GPL'd software...explicitly because they don't 
want to give the Free Software Foundation the power to modify the terms 
of the GPL to something they don't like.  I haven't seen anybody writing 
GFDL'd content that is this anal, but it is a potential situation that 
should be looked into, and avoided on Wikimedia projects in general.

-- Robert Horning