Talk:Licensing update/Questions and Answers

Archives of this page

---

2008|2009

Please add new topics to the bottom of this page

"or later"

I have always had a problem with the claim that when I submit my GFDL-licensed contributions to Wikipedia, they are licensed under GFDL 1.2 or later. This is nonsense. I don't think this is (or ought to be) enforceable (as was commented above by the Dutch anon). If in 20 years the Free Software Foundation decides to create GFDL 1.4 so that essentially the GFDL were equal to putting the material in the public domain, this would compromise the intentions of every knowledgeable contributor to Wikipedia, and any court in the US would rule it unconscionable, and unenforceable. The change being discussed isn't radical, but it is a change that no editor agreed to upon contributing, and I submit that the "or later" statement on Wikipedia is itself unconscionable, and unenforceable. Tempshill2 18:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously if "or later versions" were unenforceable then the other questions would be moot. The WMF, FSF, and CC believe the clause is legal and enforceable, at least for changes that are similar in spirit to the existing license (changes that are too different and unexpected should probably be expected to fail). The GPL has been exercising similar language for some time with no major difficulties.

However, there is almost no case law directly on point. The few cases that are vaguely related tend to have a dynamic which is not consistent with your viewpoint. In particular, courts tend to take a dim view if the person offering a contractual agreement attempts to unilaterally change it in a way that would interfere with the rights of those who have already accepted it. The key point here is that you, as the copyright holder, are in the role of the one offering the license to others. You offered all reusers certain rights to your work in exchange for their agreement to follow restrictions outlined in the current or any future GFDL. In seeking to revoke the "or later versions" clause it could be argued that you are the one seeking to inappropriately break an agreement duly offered by you and accepted by others. One may wonder about the wisdom of agreeing to be bound by all future decisions of the FSF, but it is not obvious that there is anything that makes it illegal for you to agree to be bound by their decisions. Similarly, the law allows you to grant others the ability to act as an agent on your behalf and make decisions regarding the exercise of your rights. In essence, the "later versions" clause has granted the FSF limited agency to decide how your GFDL licensed works should be protected in the future. As the court might ask: If you didn't want that, then why did you ever agree to be bound by their decisions?

If you don't accept the legitimacy of "or later versions" licensing then your best recourse is to immediately stop all contributions to all sites using that condition. Dragons flight 19:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

RE: "If you don't accept the legitimacy of "or later versions" licensing then your best recourse is to immediately stop all contributions to all sites using that condition." ........... Are you for real? You just told a person who is willing to contribute to a good cause (i.e. Wikipedia) to bugger off if he/she is not willing to write a blank cheque. All the rest of your argument boils down to the same thing: "you allow us to do anything we want with your contribution ad infinitum or take a hike."

So what if the rules change so that the FSF puts in a clause saying that Wikipedia can sell your contributions for cash money and the FSF gets a cut, but the contributer can go hang? Yes, that's a bit outlandish, but perfectly fine according to what you just wrote. Look, the only person who really looks out for that person is, that person. Not some organization. So your insistence that this is a way for the FSF (which has its own agenda most certainly, and likely not always matching a contributor's own agenda) to "protect" a contributor's work in the future is a load of hogwash. Not being able to automatically update the license on a particular work is much fairer to the contributer(s) on which Wikipedia relies, and whose rights oddly enough, you seem quite fine to trample on since you, Wikipedia, and the FSF have deemed it fair to do so.

Did you know that in many countries it is against the law to use an 'implicit' opt in clause to sell something. For example, it is against the law in Canada for a cable company to offer a free trial of some channel package for a month (without you asking for it), and unless you tell them to stop providing that channel package after the trial is over they can start charging you for it. That is, a cable company cannot unilaterally change the terms of service from free to paid without consulting the customer and getting the customer's approval to continue the service as a paid product or to stop the service. Of course there is a law against this sort of thing, one party shouldn't be changing the rules on their own, it is legally and ethically wrong. But you are saying it is a good thing, and people should be happy with the clause or leave. How about taking an example from many countries laws (heck, the Dutch explicitly prohibit this type of outrage around copy righted works) and be ethically correct and ASK the contributor if they want to allow the FSF to change the license or leave the current one in place. Changing the terms that the contributor made a contribution without their prior consent, and forcing them to agree to this or take a hike... that is ethically unsound and wrong. Just as with the cable company, the two parties (the contributer and the FSF) may not have the same agenda with respect to the work. If the license is updated, the work should remain under the prior license unless the contributor explicitly agrees to the change.

I find it appalling how you twist things so that a person who agrees to contribute under one set of rules is seemingly a horrible person if they don't like the idea of allowing one side to change the rules without telling the other. It is like taking an old fashioned duel where the two parties agree to take 15 steps, turn, and fire, but one side is allowed to change the rules without notice, and tells the other side "don't worry, I'll look after your rights, I'll be fair about it"... but what's fair to one side is not necessarily fair to the other, and he decides to change the 15 steps rule unilaterally and only take one step. Sure the person who changed the rule thinks it is a great change, he gets to live, the other... who cares, they shouldn't have challenged me to a dual anyway, it's their fault.

The only ethical way to do this is to keep the original license in place until such time as the contributor agrees to the change. This is not done by a blanket you agree to any change in perpetuity. It IS done by providing a way for a contributor to check off their permission to update the license when a license change is made. Any other way is autocratic, quite plainly unethical, and in the current implementation somewhat fascist in the Big Brother kind of way in which it tramples a person's rights. Yes, Big Brother can say like it or lump it, you agree that we know better than you, that we will look after your rights and your intellectual and copyrightable property better than you... in fact we'll tell you what is better for you... and if you don't agree, don't contribute any more. Now isn't that a good way to get people to contribute, no? No. I have contributed a couple of item and I will leave them up. But I won't contribute any more if this is the attitude around here. Wikipedia, media, et al survives on people's good will. You seem to me to be brutal on good will. theshowmecanuck 12:00:00, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

Contributors aren't simply asked to agree to conditions for Wikimedia's benefit, they are required to give the world a license in order to contribute. Granting a license to the world is different than simply agreeing to a terms of service. It absolutely does put the contributor in a position of weakness. Our license does create a position where the FSF could harm the authors rights if FSF chose to be evil. In requiring our copyleft licensing system this has always been implicit to the process. Arguably the system could have been created differently with greater protections for contributors, but that is not the system we have. I'm sorry if you or the original poster is uncomfortable with this system, and I understand why some people would be. I don't mean to be mean-spirited when I say the person should stop contributing. But there is no getting around the fact that Wikimedia has a global licensing scheme managed by third parties. If someone is unable to accept the implications of that, then the only reasonable way to protect oneself from it is not to get involved. In my opinion, it is better to confront the reality of that now and enter into this with your eyes open rather than feel "trampled upon" later on. Dragons flight 17:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

"Our license does create a position where the FSF could harm the authors rights if FSF chose to be evil." - not sure how true that is. Legally speaking, don't they need to be consistent with the intention of the earlier licenses? If Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movies becomes head of FSF, there will be some legal limits to how far he can twist the license, as long as someone takes him to court. Which is simply to say, the "or later" clause doesn't give FSF and CC complete liberty to do whatever they want - it's just a way for those of us who are willing to trust a 3rd party, to ensure future issues can be dealt with.

As for deciding to make money off Wikipedia - that has always been allowed. GFDL & CC-BY-SA are free licenses. The alternative is setting down rules about what uses are and aren't allowed, and many (including myself) prefer to give freedom as to how a knowledge resource is reused. --Chriswaterguy 19:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, "or later" is a CHOICE that Wikimedia made. FSF did not force anyone to pick up "or later". The Linux kernel was licensed under GPL v1 and later GPL v2, but there is no way for FSF to force Linus to license it under GPL v3. Please correct me if I am wrong. Kushal one 15:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Images relicensing

I seen in the respective paragraph 'A "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration" (or "MMC") contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.' . To my point of view, such da MMC-Work is defined by multiple authors. For individual images with just a few (one) author(s), i can not see such a "set of works". So i really doubt that the clause Finally, we will encourage the community to identify media files that are presently licensed under GFDL 1.x+(..) as being additionally available under CC-BY-SA. is at least covered by the GFDL1.3 itself. ---jha- 21:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The WMF is taking the position (as I believe the FSF intended) that MMC works cover everything published to an MMC Site where it could expect to be subject to collaborative editing, regardless of whether it actually was. So such images, even with only a single author, are available to be relicensed. I would also like to point out that there are a large number of written works that have been worked on by only a small number of people. So your interpretation would not just create image issues but also fragment the licensing on written text, which is something no one wants. Dragons flight 23:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

IMHO the WMF's position is supported by the GFDL, as it clearly defines any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site as an MMC. The name itself might be misleading (most files are indeed not multi-authored), but the license's definition of an MMC is what matters, so works with only one author can still be an MMC. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 17:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

What they said. Kaldari 20:57, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyvio

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the translations of the Q & A page weren’t violating copyright as well as the GFDL? At the given moment, there are translations that aren’t naming neither the original work nor the authors of that work. There is a term for texts like that: Copyvio. -- Carbidfischer 18:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. It's obvious to anyone who looks at the subpages that they are just translations of a root page. Cbrown1023 talk 18:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the licence demands it and it is by no means clear which version of which page has been translated in each case. I don’t think your personal opinion is more important than both law and licence. -- Carbidfischer 18:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

especially since we are talking about licenses here. it'd look ridiculous, if we don't honour them ourselves--TobiasKlaus 18:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's the typical "oh, we don't have to follow the copyright rules for Wikipedia content ourselves, after all we are Wikipedia" attitude, which is all too common on Wikipedia... :o( --Ibn Battuta 02:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

All copies reference the English original (now also explicitly in the header), all copies state the terms of the license, and it's an intra-wiki effort residing in a single database. I consider this to be a fully compliant use, and to the extent that you don't, it's a trivial act and clearly, none of the actual licensors (yours truly included) have any problem with it. We don't use a free content license to support the redundant multiplication of metadata; we use it to support free knowledge. The search for tiny licensing inconsistencies for its own sake is nothing but a hobgoblin; it has nothing to do with the objectives of the Wikimedia movement.--Eloquence 03:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

We’re not taking about the objectives of the Wikimedia movement, but about honesty and the legal requirements of free licences. I really don’t understand why it’s not clear that we have to obey the licences we choose for ourselves. I would be very happy if source and, at least indirectly, authors of texts were named in each and every case, without the necessity for me or anyone else to demand for it. Or is it one of our objectives to ignore authors and copyright as well, just because no one sues us for it? -- Carbidfischer 07:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Carbidfischer that this is important, and it's not nitpicking for its own sake -- but it has little specifically to do with the texts mentioned, and is a wider problem founded in how difficult our wiki tools make it to share attribution-lists across multiple pages (and how difficult they make it to find information about authors). Both of these faults exist in MediaWiki at a deep level and should be scheduled for improvement in the future roadmap (I don't know if they are so scheduled yet). Translation is one common cause for such confusion; copying and pasting across articles is another, transclusion of text and media is a third.

Given that we are spending so much time focusing on licenses, it strikes me as reasonable to suggest we revisit all of the low-hanging improvements to attribution implementation and license compliance, at least to give meaningful lip service to an interest in improving both. Better and more granular and more visible history-tracking and attribution contribute directly to quality, which is indeed one of our objectives. -- sj | help translate |+ 23:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

In simple English, please answer these direct questions

• If someone uploads an image they own, for use on the wikipedia only, will this new licenses allow others to take it and do whatever they want with it?
• Is there any text on the wikipedia right now that others can't take and do whatever they want with already? Is that going to change any?
• Can people take information from wikipedia articles, and publish it as a book?

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, so please just tell me, and keep it simple. I speak American common, not lawyerese. Dream Focus 18:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dream Focus,

• Such images are not allowed on the Wikipedia, neither under current policy nor under the proposal we are discussing here. "Wikipedia only" images are deleted for not complying with our idea of free information.
• Currently re-users have to print the complete text of the GFDL and the complete version history of articles they use. This makes it nearly impossible to use GFDL-licensed work in smaller publications, such as brochures. If this proposal is adopted, re-users will only have to include a link to the list of authors (or the article itself) and to the license.
• Yes, they can right now and they will also be able to do this if the proposal is adopted.

Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 19:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Where did you find only have to include a link to the list of authors (or the article itself) and to the license? Licensing update#Proposed terms of use says:

To re-distribute an article page in any form, provide credit to the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article or articles you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.)

So, according to the terms of use, it is necessary to either link to the article or to link to a copy of the article which provides credit to the authors or to include a list of all authors.

Where is the paragraph that says that the terms of use are irrelevant and names the options you have described instead? -- Carbidfischer 20:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I did a quick summary of the options, I did not explain them in detail. Basically linking to the article or version history is probably easiest way. Of course, you can go even further and include a full list of authors. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 22:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

No, you summarized options that don’t exist in the terms of service we are discussing. I don’t know why you did that, I just hope you didn’t confuse Dream Focus with that. -- Carbidfischer 22:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oh well. I don't see exactly what will change then. I saw people mention something about images, and text, but no real difference between the proposal on that then. 74.248.114.20 21:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

This applies to both text and images. There is only a slight difference: It is proposed that all authors have to be credited when using an image with less than 5 authors. Images with more than 5 authors will be attributed in the same way as text is. As images often don't have many authors, this makes sure that image authors will almost always be credited with their name and not by URL. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 22:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware one of the key reasons for the proposal and what will change is that we will be able to import content from CC-SA-BY (and compatible CC licenses) sources. As quite a number of other wikis and sources are choosing the CC-SA-BY license, this will be quite useful for us. It also allows our content, particularly that which is going to be deleted for notability reasons to copied to other wikis using such a license (such as wikinews). Obviously we lose the abilility to import from (and export to) GFDL sources but given the increasing popularity of CC licenses for stuff like this, I think it's considered a goodtrade off. In the eyes of many the CC license also has numerous other advantages (many of which have been mentioned), hence the reason why people often choose it instead of the GFDL Nil Einne 13:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, import of content from CC sources will be made virtually impossible by the proposed terms of use. People usually don’t choose CC-BY-SA because they don’t want to be named as author. -- Carbidfischer 13:56, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Alas. I could have read this instead of spending two hours researching CC-SA-BY. But there was just so much sample-bias in the poll (no negative comments on it)! Advantageously, now I know a lot more about Lawrence Lessig. Diego Bank 03:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a balance?

I voted no for the proposal.

As a citizen of the United States, I respect the durigibility of copyright laws.

I respect the folks of Wikipedia for the great work they have have done to commmunicate knowledge. This has created a conflict.

While I trust content of Wiki because it is "fluid", I don't trust the accuracy of Wiki.

NO DISRESPECT TO WIKI.

The thing is, Wiki is so fluid, how could any content be accredited as 'truth' or 'factual'.

I love you Wiki, your foundation is set in truth, but the builders may not be truthful. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.127.235.184 (talk • contribs) 01:58, 15 april 2009 (UTC).

I don't get it. Could you please expand yourself a little bit? Kushal one 15:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The comment that started this thread seems to confuse the accuracy of Wikipedia's content with the licensing of it. Those are two separate issues that have nothing to do with each other. I hope others won't hope confuse separate issues when voting; no matter which position you take, the question is too important to conflate it with others. – McDutchie 18:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Retroactive re-licensing?

Will edits previous to the dual-license also be dual-licensed? --Toussaint 17:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. This is possible, because editors always agreed to GFDL 1.x or any later version. Thus they also agreed to the GFDL 1.3, which makes relicensing possible. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 19:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Mixed dual-licensing and single-licensing problems

It seems rather unclear how pages are meant to be marked clearly or consistently to indicate whether they are dual-licensed or CC-BY-SA only. Currently we have no technical provision to indicate variable licenses, nor is it clear that it could be automatically derived:

• If CC-BY-SA-only text is copied into a page which is dual-licensed, is the resulting page CC-BY-SA only from then on?
• If the CC-BY-SA-only material which was added is later removed, can new edits be dual licensed with GFDLv3 again? What about the intermediate edits which were made when the page was CC-BY-SA only? Must they all be removed as well?

Maintaining dual licensing seems to me to have downsides to both future content republishers and our own technical staff, without having a significant upside -- for instance, it's not clear whether material copied to another site under GFDL-only, modified, then copied back to Wikipedia would be acceptable, so continuing to offer new material under GFDL is IMO more likely to create confusion and content forking than anything beneficial.

Have any provisions for this been planned which aren't spelled out in the proposal or FAQ? --brion 23:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• If CC-BY-SA-only text is copied into a page which is dual-licensed, is the resulting page CC-BY-SA only from then on? Yes, all edits previous to the import of CC-only material are dual-licensed.
• If the CC-BY-SA-only material which was added is later removed, can new edits be dual licensed with GFDLv3 again? What about the intermediate edits which were made when the page was CC-BY-SA only? Must they all be removed as well? If CC-content is completely removed (e.g. by revert or similar), the resulting text can again be licensed under the GFDL. Note however, that it might be hard to remove content completely after it has been part of the article for some time as it might have spread. There is no need to remove the intermediate edits, though it must be clear that these revisions are available und CC-BY-SA only.

  Since the intermediate revisions were CC-BY-SA-only and no GFDL, presumably any future version including their additions cannot be relicensed as GFDL without the author's permission. It seems to me that all intermediate revisions' additions would need to also be removed to revert the page to dual-license. --brion 22:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

  All original content created by Wikimedians will be dual licensed, including the edits taken individually. Assuming that the edits don't touch the CC-BY-SA-only bits, then those edits would be properly dual licensed and could be restored even after CC-BY-SA-only text was scrubbed out. Dragons flight 22:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• it's not clear whether material copied to another site under GFDL-only, modified, then copied back to Wikipedia would be acceptable Depends on when this happened. If the whole process took place before November 2008, we're fine. If it took place later, we're screwed, because such content is then not eligible for relicensing. After the relicensing, this is not possible anymore, because such content would be available under GFDL only and not under CC-BY-SA. Such content is disallowed by the proposed policy.

As I understood it, keeping the GFDL was the wish of the FSF. We are de facto abolishing it by allowing CC-only content to be imported and determining which article is under GFDL and which is not, is basically even more onerous (to use the wording of the Q&A page) than complying with the GFDL, so I guess nobody will try to reuse content under GFDL if they don't have to (like in GFDL-only projects). I don't see how dual-licensing brings downsides for our own technical staff as the obligation to find out whether the article is available under the CC-BY-SA lies with the reusers. IMHO it would have been better to completely drop the GFDL for Wikimedia projects, but then the FSF would probably not have allowed the change. (BTW: There is no such thing as GFDLv3, it's either GFDL 1.3 or GPLv3, you probably got those mixed up.) Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 23:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Failing to indicate license state would indeed save us trouble but feels like an abrogation of our responsibilities to our users; I wouldn't be very happy about making the claim that parts of the site are dual-licensed without providing any way for users to discover whether it's true of a particular piece. --brion 22:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree. The relicensing proposal doesn't require us to track CC-BY-SA-only content, but at a personal level I would encourage wikis to flag content (e.g. with a category or something similar) when CC-BY-SA-only content has been imported. It is perhaps okay to say that reusers bear the primary burden, but I generally feel that we ought to be taking steps to help make these issues easier for them when it is reasonable to do so. Dragons flight 22:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Free Software Foundation would not have released the FDL 1.3 with a migration clause without a commitment from us to dual-license in some form. We submitted a fairly detailed paper, including a flow chart of some of the risks of various types of dual licensing regime, explaining why we didn't find it to be a very desirable option.

Initially they asked us to implement new software features to track multiple licenses, but in the end they agreed that we could leave the obligation to make any determination of whether or not any piece of content is GFDL to the re-users. This is exactly what we're doing: We've made it very clear in this proposal that there are no special obligations for editors under this regime, except for the implicit dual-licensing agreement when making edits. There's a small risk of a GFDL-only fork, but given the legal uncertainties involved in pursuing such an endeavor, I don't see a reason to be overly concerned. And, indeed, if we switched to CC-BY-SA-only, anyone could still create a GFDL-only fork of Wikimedia content created prior to the re-licensing.

In practice, standards will need to develop for when and how externally published CC-BY-SA content is attributed within Wikimedia anyway, and this would also address the issue of being able to determine whether a particular piece of content includes CC-BY-SA content. The upside is, at least, that supporters of continued use of the GFDL should find this to be a better compromise than switching to CC-BY-SA wholesale, and any remaining GFDL users will be able to make continued use of Wikimedia content within limitations.

From the standpoint of licensing simplicity, the preferred option would have been to merge GFDL and CC-BY-SA into a single license. This would have been great for us, but the FSF still regards the FDL as an important license in its toolkit which has lots of characteristics that are specific and valuable for software documentation. A merge would eliminate those differences, and therefore wasn't acceptable to the FSF. The present "exit strategy" allows us to work with a license of our choice that's fundamentally in the same spirit, while preserving the FDL as a documentation license.--Eloquence 01:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

*nod* IMO the dual-license in this case is so onerous on potential GFDL reusers that it would make a lot more sense to just drop GFDL from future edits, giving all reusers and republishers a clear consistent path. But if that's the compromise it's going to take, I guess we can live with it... --brion 22:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

URL stability, license compatibility and other problems

There are some problems with the current TOS, which require slight changes to the terms of service and the attribution scheme. I've outlined them in detal on the mailing list, I'll just summarize them shortly here:

• using article URL for attribution brings up both legal and practical problems as such an URL doesn't refer to the original work but a modified version of it (or, as in the case of a page move, some wholly different work)
• CC-BY-SA-3.0 is not compatible with CC-BY-SA-1.0, and compatibility between the rest of the versions and between different localizations is also somewhat problematic
• the proposed amendment to the copyright policy that mentions the edit summary and wiki-to-wiki copying is hard to interpret
• the edit summary in its current form is not well suited to crediting external web pages

--Tgr 12:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

GFDL-1.2-only files

Currently, there are over 10,000 files on Commons which are tagged as GFDL-1.2 and no later version (often referred to as GFDL-1.2 only). If this proposal goes through, what will be the position regarding a) these GFDL-1.2 only files already existing, and b) GFDL-1.2 only files subsequently uploaded? Tivedshambo 08:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

See Licensing_update/Questions_and_Answers#Images. This proposal does not affect currently existing or future uploads of GFDL-1.2-only media. However, that question may be considered separately by the Foundation in the future. Dragons flight 08:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Re-users within WMF?

Does the last paragraph of #Dual licensing:

The CC-BY-SA license requires attribution, so when third party content is imported under "CC-BY-SA-only", it will have to be noted who the author is and that it was released under CC-BY-SA, as part of the normal, existing procedures through which projects make note of such histories (we recommend the article footer or the version history). Re-users will have to consult this information to determine whether CC-BY-SA-only content has been imported. Our licensing guidelines will make that clear.

mean that if we copy text from one article to another (as happens frequently in certain kinds of cleanup), then in our role as "re-users", we have to check if any of the text we're copying is CC-BY-SA-only, and in our role as "[agent of passive-voice verbs 'is imported' and 'be noted']", we have to indicate that on the destination page? This bothers me; external re-users have an "out", in that they can choose to be CC-BY-SA-only without having to check the history, but we're putting a fairly heavy additional burden on anyone who does certain kinds of cleanup (merges, splits, etc.). I don't much like the idea that it will now be harder for my contributed text to be re-used in certain ways. (Though I'll still probably vote "Yes", because it will now be easier for my contributed text to be re-used in certain other ways, and the pro- probably outweighs the con-.)

Anyway, sorry, I guess I've veered away from "question" and into "opinion", so I'll shut up now and wait for answers. :-)

—Ruakh_TALK 14:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

No, you are only expected to note the source of the internal copying/merging/etc., generally in the edit summary. Provided you keep track of the various moves and copies, you don't have to figure out the licensing as someone else should be able to do that later when the need arises. Dragons flight 20:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

O.K., cool. Thanks. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 20:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Question

Sorry if this has been covered somewhere but I was wondering if all deleted content would also be dual licensed - would be relevant if someone wanted to restore something after the cut-off date. Guest9999 23:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the deletion reason. If something was deleted because it was a copyvio, it will not be dual-licensed. If it was deleted for being out of scope or similar, I guess it can be dual-licensed. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 09:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

So in terms of the actual licensing procedure, if approved by vote the Foundation will just have to issue some kind of statement and everything on the servers licensed under the GFDL 1.3 will also become licensed by CC-BY-SA? Guest9999 10:02, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

They don't need approval by vote, but the rest of your statement is pretty much correct. The WMF will change the copyright notices and that should be it. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 11:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Another Deleted Content Question

Above reminded me of a question I posted on foundation-l, but never got fully answered ...

If the attribution requirement under CC-BY-SA becomes "URL to page or history" what happens if the referenced page is deleted? It will no longer be possible to access the list of contributors at that URL, unless changes to the software are planned?

Eclecticdave 13:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

URL is a sufficient attribution provided the target page continues to exist. If that target page is deleted (or the WMF somehow dies), then one would have to provide an alternative form of attribution prior to further exercising rights under CC-BY-SA. For example, one could create a mirror of the history page and provide a new URL to that, or one could include a printed author list, or any number of other options. Assuming WMF does an okay job of creating and distributing dumps and mirrors (something which we aren't currently all that good about), it would be possible to locate the necessary attribution info even if WMF suddenly died.

Incidentally, WMF has flirted with the notion of keeping attribution histories available for deleted articles, but I don't think there are any plans to go through with that at the present time. Dragons flight 17:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was afraid of that, and I think that's a problem. Since there is no way to know or guarantee that a target page will always exist, URL attribution (at least directly referencing the original page on WMF) is effectively useless. If a third party wanted to use URL attribution it would have to get the list of authors and put it on a webpage under their own control and use that URL instead (which somewhat defeats the goal of making attribution easier). Otherwise the implication is that a page gets deleted and a manufacturer would be legally obliged to recall all those T-Shirts and burn them! Eclecticdave 22:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, the manufacturer's only obligation is to cease new distribution until the problem is fixed. The manufacturer has no obligation with respect to existing works already distributed while the URL was functional. Dragons flight 22:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

So that means if you are publishing a printed version of Wikipedia containing 100.000 articles, and one of the 100.000 is deleted, you have to stop selling the book? --Tgr 19:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Or you'd have to ensure an alternative way of acknowledging the authors. One way of handling attribution is by URL to Wikipedia. That doesn't prevent one from choosing a more durable method such as printing an author list, or setting up a website to mirror the article histories as they appeared at the time the articles were copied and linking to that. If all you do is link to Wikipedia, then yes you are dependent on the existence of Wikipedia, but one can choose to use forms of attribution that aren't dependent on Wikipedia. Dragons flight 21:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

According to the FAQ, the reason for the license change is that "Trying to obey [the GFDL] can be onerous. Per the letter of the license, every significant (greater than fair use) quotation from a GFDL work needs a copy of the license (three or so pages of print) attached. GFDL content is almost impossible to reuse in audio or video content for this reason." If CC would mean that every significant quotation needed a copy of the full page history, that would hardly be a step forward. As Eclecticdave says, Wikipedia really needs to show at least the names of contributors for a deleted page. --Tgr 08:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The impression I am getting, is that URL attribution on its own is only really usable under some fairly limited use cases. That in itself would be fine, except that is not how it is being presented - URL attribution is in the Proposed Terms Of Use, presented as one of three generally acceptable forms of attribution - yet it seems that in many, if not most, practical use cases then it is not going to be legally sufficient.

IMHO WMF needs to revisit the issue of providing some sort of access to histories or author lists for deleted articles, in order to make URL attribution a viable option.

Eclecticdave 14:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Dual licensing - "merging in GFDL-only text"

The page says (my emphasis):

"It will be the obligation of re-users to validate whether an article includes CC-BY-SA-only changes – dual licensing should not be a burden on editors. This is also not intended to be bidirectional, so merging in GFDL-only text will not be possible."

I am not sure that i understood this legalese part. Suppose that the majority votes "yes". Some time after that i find a text, which is not licensed under CC, but is licensed under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Will i be able to upload this text to Wikipedia? --Amir E. Aharoni 17:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

No. Text that is GFDL-only will no longer be accepted in Wikipedia after the transition. Dragons flight 17:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick answer! --Amir E. Aharoni 17:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

GFDL 2

If i understood correctly, the FSF is working on GFDL 2.0, which, among other things, is supposed to remove the two problems because of which this licensing update was initiated: the incompatibility with CC and the requirement to cite the complete license in every reuse.

First of all, correct me if i'm wrong in any of the above.

Now, if the above is correct - wouldn't it be better to simply wait for the FSF to publish GFDL 2 than to complicate the matters inside Wikipedia by getting stuck forever with dual-licensing?

Remembering GPL 3, i understand that it may take years until GFDL 2 is published, but isn't it nevertheless worth the wait? --Amir E. Aharoni 18:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

My impression, and it is only an impression, is that the GFDL 2 drafts (last published late 2006) were more or less abandoned in favor of the relicensing clause in GFDL 1.3. None of the GFDL 2 drafts offered CC relicensing/compatibility, which the WMF board decided to explictly ask for (late 2007), and so GFDL 1.3 was created to accomdate us. If there is a GFDL 2.0, I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be targeted towards wiki issues. Dragons flight 18:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Actual cases where CC content could not be incorporated

Can anyone write a short list with examples of cases when useful CC content could not be incorporated into Wikipedia because of GFDL incompatibility?

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 19:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Currently CC-BY-SA text cannot be used in Wikipedia (with limited exceptions for fair use, etc.) That means Wikipedia cannot import text from projects like Encyclopedia of Earth, Wikitravel, Citizendium and others. It also means that Wikipedia text cannot be used in those projects. I'm sure someone who gave it a bit of thought could come up with a longer list, but that's a starting point.

However, I don't think this is the most prominent issue to consider. Wikipedia imports relatively little verbatim text to begin with. Rather I would say a more prominent issue is making it easier for third parties to reuse Wikipedia content. Dragons flight 22:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikitravel is CC-BY-SA-1.0, which is not compatible with CC-BY-SA-3.0. --Tgr 08:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Does cc-by-sa comply with DFSG?

Does cc-by-sa 3 comply with Debian's DFSG? I searced in the www but i didnt find a definitive answer.

--Chomwitt 21:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes [1]. Dragons flight 00:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Public Domain is just better

In my view, all this is an incredible waste of time. The works should be released in the Public Domain. They will get there anyways, (though after a long while, unfortunately). But releasing the work in the PD would eliminate the talks about license compatibilities and such. It's absolutely amazing to me, to see that different works that are made for the purpose of being use by anyone, are incompatible to be joined, simply because they have different, incompatible "free licenses". Also, I can't understand why Wikipedia has to ask any kind of permission from FSF, in order to take decisions about the licensing of it's own material. Please, encourage people to release materials (texts, images, movies etc) into Public Domain, that would make all this waste of energy unnecesary. Thanks Ark25 23:17, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a PD zealot. I dual license my works into the PD. But for a project of Wikipedia's size and simple universality, taking a copyleft stance on licenses has a tremendous impact on the development of other freely licensed resources. So in 10 years I agree, there should be a similar shift to PD -- once the corpus of -SA materials is sufficiently compelling to be self-sustaining. In the meantime, I concede that the current WP course is slightly superior. -- sj | help translate |+ 23:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I am a PD zealot as well, but I have tempered my beliefs to support some kind of "protected public domian," which the GPL and GFDL do pretty well, but add on a lot of "RMS" (seemingly communist) cruft.--John Bessa 15:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Plain English

I hate Ts and Cs like this, especially the bad practice of WHOLE PARAGRAPHS WRITTEN IN CAPITALS, MAKING THEM ALMOST UNREADABLE. What happened to Plain English? [[2]]. WP should take this opportunity of providing a good example.

Please provide the license as a clearly structured document with sections for readers and for contributors, in the form of what you may and may not do, copyright rights and responsibilities, etc.

It should be preceded by a summary of the license with reference where necessary to the more detailed legalistic wording.

I propose that you abandon this vote until an easily understandable, well structured plain english version of the license can be resubmitted. Meanwhile I propose to vote against.

I just tried to use my Wikipedia log in but it was rejected, & the login procedure is so obstructive that I gave up after several attempts, having been rejected on different counts at different times. Most frustrating!!!!! Please fix. 81.170.80.177 07:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to log in on the voting site. Just go to the WMF project where you are mainly active and click the Go button. Also have a look at Licensing update/Bugs, maybe your problem has been explained there. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 08:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Common useage: GPL for Docs

The problem I see with stringent document licensing is that is has requirements far beyond free software licensing. I can cut and paste any free code and insert into my own code (a very rare event), but I cannot cut and paste, say, lab safety rules for a student handout without researching and complying with research requirements: the free s/w system makes me a pirate if I don't precisely comply!

I only encountered the GFDL recently through a discussion on the Camerapedia list. The issue there was compliance with wp, and the problem was the wholesale copying of pages without citation by wp editors.

What surprised me is the distance between the GPL and the GFDL. And I like the GPL very much, but I think it should be called the "protected public domian," (mentioned above) and re-written w/in that context. So from there the documentation should be built protection to assure that the naturalness of the public domain (where we evolved) and the genius of the GPL (where we grew up) are extended to the rest of humanity much of which is held within the annexed public domain either as capital operators (masters) or human capital (slaves).

Not applicable in France

The French writer Victor Hugo (19th century) defended the author's moral right and persuaded European coutries to sign the Berne convention. The French Intellectual property code, article L121-1, says "An author shall enjoy the right to respect for his name, his authorship and his work. This right shall attach to his person. It shall be perpetual, inalienable and imprescriptible. It may be transmitted mortis causa to the heirs of the author.".
Now Creative commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 says, 4c: "You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties;".
So in many cases the author name will be lost: if it's not "reasonable" to the medium or media or if the licensor designate another party. Hence such works can't be legally produced in France. But Wikimedias are published worldwide, including in France. Wiktionaire is even one of the biggest projects. Moreover, we would not know in the author names are all mentionned or not (since Creative commons don't require it), so that all Creative commons righted works, specially those produced abroad, are suspected to violate the French law. To comply with French requirements, a means to find the list of all authors (for instance, a U.R.I.) should be made clearly compulsory in the license text.
--Henri de Solages 09:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Attribution

On the Q&A-page, we read: "Given our own existing site terms as well as the actual ways in which credit is given in Wikipedia to a contributor, we believe a consistent approach to attribution in Wikipedia is to state a requirement to attribute articles by linking to them. CC-BY-SA allows for this attribution model, as it permits the author to require attribution-by-name or attribution-by-URL. That this approach is consistent with the language and intent of CC-BY-SA has been validated by Creative Commons General Counsel." (Emphasis not in the original.) This means that the author, and not the WMF, has to decide whether or not he agrees to a attribution-by-URL-policy. Furhtermore, when importing CC-BY-SA-licenced text from another project, the author may have already decided otherwise. Adrian Suter 12:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)