[Wikipedia-l] Re: How Wikipedia breaks the GNU/FDL

[Delirium]

A belated reply, but an issue I don't think was brought up:

Nicholas Knight wrote:

>>4B: We do not list the author of the last version plus at least five
>>authors
>>    of the old version on the title page.
>>    
>>
>
>To quote from 4B:
>"...unless they release you from this requirement."
>
>One could easily argue that Wikipedia recieves an implicit release based on 
>the fact that it is self-evident to contributors before they submit anything 
>that we do not list the authors in this way.
>  
>
>>4F+addendum: The license notice of Wikipedia is not in the
>>prescribed form,
>>    and it is not put on the title page
>>    
>>
>
>The only person concievably able to try and enforce that provision on 
>documents submitted to Wikipedia without looking like a complete idiot in 
>front of everyone -- including U.S. courts -- would be the original author, 
>and he'd have a time of it.
>  
>
[rest snipped]

All this is assuming that the author it the person who submitted it to 
Wikipedia.  This is not necessarily the case -- we also would like to 
reserve the right to incorporate 3rd-party GFDL texts into Wikipedia; 
for example, Nupedia texts.  A third party who writes a GFDL text and 
does not submit it to Wikipedia might well expect the letter of the GFDL 
to be followed, and if we do not, that causes a problem for us.

-Mark