[Wikipedia-l] GFDL works inside other published works

[Lars Aronsson]

Mark Williamson wrote:
> My guess is that on the page near the beginning of the book where it
> gives copyright information, it should say "some portions of this book
> are (C) Wikipedia, and are released under the GNU Free Documentation
> licence" or something of the sort.

Will this be possible?  If this was not text, but free software 
released under the GPL, the entire book would be have to be 
released under GPL.  That's the "viral effect" of GPL, as intended 
by its creator Richard Stallman (and hated by Microsoft).  Is 
there no such viral effect at all in GFDL?

Would there be any difference in this respect if Wikipedia had 
used a Creative Commons Share-Alike license instead?

(I'm fully aware that CC didn't exist in 2001, when Wikipedia was 
launched.  I've been following this discussion since then.  I'm 
not yet aware of any case law or court cases where the 
consequences of Wikipedia's GFDL status has been tried.)


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se