From: "user_Jamesday" user_Jamesday@myrealbox.com ...
The history is not a great concern. It's not intended to be part of the publication. Only the current Wikipedia page has that intent and that will remain true so long as search engines don't index the history pages. Something which isn't intended for publication and is documenting compliance with a legal notice is unlikely to be copyright infringement.
Have you read the lively debate between Brian Vibber and myself regarding the above? I was arguing devil's advocate the above position (it came out of a discussion about the GFDL status of Wikilists, I think it was on the general Wikipedia-L discussion list) and I think Brian put up a very good fight for the position that all history pages are released under the GFDL and thus anyone has the right to use them even after they become "outdated" like legacy software releases. The mantra around here is once GFDL always GFDL. Perhaps that is true. If it is, probably better to delete, but even deletion does not matter because some downstream licensee/licensor has probably already adapted it. . Since we can't know for sure that rationale is:" probably" better to delete "potential" copyright infringements.
I say "probably" and "potential" because there is also the argument that could be used that the edit history pages are an archive that allows for infringement of sorts as fair use in an archive is usually honoured to a high degree and Title 17 USC sec. 108 allows archives to maintain copies of otherwise copyrighted material, and sec. 107 would also operate in such a situation. Is such material available under GFDL? Probably not, but once it gets into the archive (i.e. it is a page history URL not a live Wikipedia page url) then there are probably no damages or no infringement or both, page histories are rarely viewed and if they are relicensed under the GFDL it is such licensor/licensee who must deal with the problem, not Wikpedia, there is no Wikipedia warranty included with the license (in fact Wikipedia is not the author of any article on Wikipedia, it is a coauthorship copyright owned by all contributors to that page). I feel that these later statements are the best arguments to look at regarding history pages, not the GFDL or the copyright infringement out of publication arguments. So following this lastline of argumentation to its natural conclusion nothing needs to be done until someone comes to a different conclusion that is consensus.
Alex756