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

[Anthony]

On 9/26/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am informed by a nice chap on #wikipedia that they've now released
> the draft GFDL v2:
>
> http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html
> [snip]
> I won't have a chance to read it for a while - anyone want to go through it?
>
I do, I do, though only a quick look for tonight.

For starters, there's a new SFDL (simplified free documentation
license).  It has no provisions for cover texts and invariant
sections.  And best of all, under the new GFDL v2: "If the Work has no
Cover Texts and no Invariant Sections then you may relicense the Work
under the GNU Simpler Free Documentation License."

So this means that Wikipedia, since it is licensed under GFDL v1.2 or
any later version (according to [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]], anyway), can
be relicensed under GFDL v2 and then rerelicensed under the SFDL (one
step, two steps, whatever, it can be done).

So I'm going to ignore the new GFDL, and focus on the new SFDL,
because presumably Wikipedia will want to take advantage of this
relicensing.

OK, first off in terms of changes is the removal of the requirement to
include a copy of the license for verbatim copies.  Instead, we have
this: "You need not include a copy of this License in the Work if you
have registered the work's license with a national agency that
maintains a network server through which the general public can find
out its license."  I don't know what this means, actually, so maybe
someone can explain it.  Maybe the FSF intends to run one such
agency/network?  If so, sounds good so far, I guess.

HOWEVER, this is in the section for verbatim copies.  The later
section for modified copies still says to "H. Include an unaltered
copy of this License."  Is this a mistake, or is it intentional?
We'll have to ask during the discussion period, but considering the
section on "excerpts" it seems to be intentional.

There is still a requirement for forks to "Use a title distinct from
that of the Work, and from those of previous versions of the Work as
listed in the History section."  This is problematic if you consider
an individual article as "the Work", and not Wikipedia (or the English
language Wikipedia) as a whole.  Interestingly, the statement that
"You may use the same title as a previous version if the original
publisher of that version gives permission." has been dropped.
Hopefully this is a mistake.

"Title page" has been redefined.  It now reads "The "Title Page" means
the portion of the work where information such as title, authors, date
of publication, and copyright notice would normally appear."  So no
longer, it seems, will a Wikipedia article be considered to have a
title page (it was previously defined as "the text near the most
prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of
the body of the text").  This is significant because two of the
requirements for distribution of a modified copy are "List as authors
(on the Title Page, if any), one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
Version." and "Credit (on the Title Page, if any) at least five of the
principal authors of the Work (all of them, if it has fewer than five)
if the material derived from the Work is more than 1/4 of the total."
This was a place where Wikipedia was previously not in compliance with
the GFDL, and now it seems they would be.

"Authors and publishers of previous versions can release you from
above requirements to cite or refer to them or their versions."  This
is a good addition, although it should probably be spelled out better
*how* this release is done, so that there isn't any ambiguity as to
whether or not it has been.

"You may publish a work, a Modified Version, or a collection, of up to
20,000 characters of text (excluding formatting mark-up) in electronic
form, or up to 12 normal printed pages, or up to a minute of audio or
video, as an Excerpt. An Excerpt follows the applicable rules of this
license, except that the following required materials--the copy of
this license, title page materials, historical copyright notices,
warranty disclaimers, and any required sections--may be replaced by
one or more publicly accessible URLs referring to the same materials."
 This is a wholly new section.  A minute of audio seems too short,
though.  Presumably almost all images released under the GFDL would be
completely exempt as they wouldn't have 20,000 characters of text in
them.  That's good too.

Overall, it looks like a major improvement.  I'll take a closer look
tomorrow, and hopefully some more people will have already commented
by then (and hopefully my email will have gotten through the
moderation queue by then).

Anthony