[WikiEN-l] GDFL compliance

[Ray Saintonge]

Sam Korn wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 6:26 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 2:26 AM, Sam Korn wrote:
>>> (Photo: <a
>>> href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Houses_of_Parliament.jpg">Wikipedia</a>) 
>>>
>>>
>>> I imagine that would satisfy *almost* everyone.
>> Hell no. You didn't even credit the author.
>>
>> Photo: WikiWitch at Wikipedia, under GFDL.
>>
>> That's about the minimum you could get away with. You could probably
>> ditch the "Wikipedia" actually, maybe link to their Wikipedia user
>> page though.
>>
>> (In this case, the photo is actually PD, so it's all moot).
> Right.  I certainly agree that it would be better to name the author.
>
> But when articles are reused, they generally link to the Wikipedia 
> article without giving a list of usernames; I don't see why that would 
> be different for images.

You can put a lot of details into a free licence, but ss the number of 
details increases, compliance diminishes.  Something like "Courtesy 
Wikipedia" may be the full extent of what you can realistically expect.  
Articles are relatively easier to link to than images, because articles 
have clear obvious plain-language titles, something which cannot always 
be said of images.  In large measure the rules requiring detailed 
credits are completely unenforcible outside the WMF community. 

Almost every website has its terms of service, which people rarely read, 
and more readily ignore.  It is foolish to believe that using a site 
implies that the Terms of Service imply some kind of contract between 
the site owner and user.

Ec