[Wikilegal-l] [Wikipedia-l] GFDL, History, and Combining Documents (was "since we are on the subject")

[Andre Engels]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Martin Harper wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> When a Wikipedian moves content from one article to another, this is covered
> under section 5: COMBINING DOCUMENTS. This requires that 'In the combination,
> you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents,
> forming one section Entitled "History";'.
>
> Clearly we don't do this. However, we might to be able to claim that we combine the
> history "by reference" if we state "from [[X]]". Dubious?

It depends on what is considered history. The GNU/FDL was written for works
with clear revisions, following each other. One would not note every single
small change in the history, but only when a new version is actually published
(and not always even then). This would naturally sweep many minor edits under
the rug - rather than noting every spelling correction in the history, one
would only put down a new entry in the history if one had made so many changes
that the document should really be considered a new version.

Maybe we could use a philosophy like that for Wikipedia too - Wikipedia pages
are working documents. We freely put them out on the Internet under the
GNU/FDL license in that state, but they are not 'versions' for the sake of
the GNU/FDL. That way, Wikipedia itself needs not be bothered with the
History section at all (unless we include other GNU/FDL material), and people
who copy from us, can start a history file with "Wikipedia contributors,
Wikipedia, <date>", add their own information, and also be done with it.

Andre Engels