[WikiEN-l] Encyclopedia of Earth appears to be now online...

[Fastfission]

On 9/22/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The GFDL is such an *awful* licence for wiki text.

Almost everybody seems to agree that the GFDL doesn't really get the job done.

Is there a reason we haven't worked to implement a new licensing
agreement for all edits this-point-on? I raised this once before but I
don't think anything ever came of it.

My suggestion: Change the edit-field notice from "You agree to license
your contributions under the GFDL." to "You agree to license your
contributions under the GFDL, or a [[similarly free]] license chosen
by the Wikimedia Foundation."

"Similarly free" would link to a page explaining that the WMF would be
given the right to re-license or multi-license content but only under
licenses which met the requirements of "free content" (which we could
outline).

We could even make it so that all users would be required to say that
all of their previous content released under GFDL was similarly open
to multilicensing.

It would only create a minor mess at first. Everything could be
assumed released as GFDL. Tools could be developed to scan an article
for content which could be released as CC-BY-SA (for example, if it
was one of the license approved by WMF).

Anyway. It's an idea. It is one which gives the WMF a lot more
flexibility than it currently has, though within the commitments of
basic "free content" guidelines which would be inflexible. It allows
for future licensing possibilities to ensure freedom and accessibility
for the long term (GFDL doesn't work well with printed photographs;
who knows what technology of the future would be tied up by some
aspect of it?). And at the bare minimum all content would still be
GFDL.

It's an idea which does the most work the sooner it is implemented, as well.

Just an idea...

FF