[Wikipedia-l] File upload Copyright notice

[Mark Christensen]

Axil's interpretation strikes me as the standard interpretation for those
writing free software.  I retain the copyright the code I write, and license
it under the GPL or some other license, but also maintain the right to
relicense it under a revised version of the GPL, a BSD style license, or any
other agreement I choose.  

In many cases this standard practice is amended to include the assignment of
copyright to the Free Software Foundation, or some other organization which
I trust with the ability to relicense my code under whatever license they
choose.  As long as an entity retains copyright, they will be able to
release the copyrighted material under whatever license they choose.  Not
assigning copyright is therefore a protection against undesirable license
changes, but at the very least it is common practice to view the assignment
of copyright as a separate transaction from submitting code under a
particular license.

Legally, if you want us to assign copyright to you, I think you need to
change the wording of the submission text, and add some verbiage to the top
of your license page.

I am not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the current situation,
and can easily be confirmed by consulting a lawyer with some experience with
free software, or by looking up  stories on the subject at www.lwn.org, or
looking into the faq on why you should assign copyright to the FSF at
www.gnu.org.

Yours
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Sanger [mailto:lsanger at nupedia.com]
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 6:10 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] File upload Copyright notice


On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Axel Boldt wrote:

> The current file upload utility requires the user to "donate" the
> copyright to "Wikipedia". Wikipedia is no legal entity, so this
> doesn't make sense. It is also not in line with the way we have
> handled copyrights up to know for text submissions: the user retains
> copyright, but licenses the work under GFDL. I suggest that this be
> changed.

What makes it true that "we have handled copyrights up to now for text
submissions" in this way (i.e., with this interpretation)?  As far as I
can tell, Axel, you were the first to insist, several months ago, that
this was the case.  If I recall correctly, Jimbo and I admitted that this
might be a valid interpretation.  For my part, I thought it was obvious
from the beginning that writers are donating text to the project, in order
for it to be distributed freely to the public at large.  While I can
certainly freely admit that there are other interpretations, what I can't
understand is why you would think another interpretation is so clearly the
correct one.  I don't think we've settled the issue.

By the way, Wikipedia might soon join Nupedia as part of a Nupedia
Foundation; that then would be the obvious holders of Wikipedia article
copyrights.

Larry

[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l