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Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1

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stephen.bain at gmail

May 28, 2009, 4:26 PM

Post #26 of 40 (859 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:51 AM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny [at] gmail> wrote:
> We should simply have told the
> FSF: At least when dealign with text, we regard all CC-BY licenses as
> compatible with each other and with GFDL, and therefore there's
> nothing that needs to be negotiated. Anyone who wants to use our
> content under any such license is welcome, and we will treat yours
> similarly, under the presumption that any court would regard the
> differences as insignificant.

Please tell me you didn't vote on the licensing transition proposal.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain [at] gmail

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May 28, 2009, 4:55 PM

Post #27 of 40 (862 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:57 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> 2009/5/28 David Goodman <dgoodmanny [at] gmail>:
> >Free culture arose to permit
> > reuse, and should continue that way. We should simply have told the
> > FSF: At least when dealign with text, we regard all CC-BY licenses as
> > compatible with each other and with GFDL, and therefore there's
> > nothing that needs to be negotiated.
>
> It's a great way to get reuses sued by discruntled wikipedians but has
> no useful function.

Reusers have pretty much never followed the GFDL, yet there haven't been any
lawsuits. At best the recent legal contortions will change nothing, at
worst it will inspire lawsuits where there would have been none.
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newyorkbrad at gmail

May 28, 2009, 5:13 PM

Post #28 of 40 (860 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

You know ... I can't think of a single instance in which I've ever seen
Wikipedia content reused in which the GFDL was followed. In EVERY instance,
the attribution has either been messed up or omitted altogether.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, of course.

Newyorkbrad

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:

> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:57 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> > 2009/5/28 David Goodman <dgoodmanny [at] gmail>:
> > >Free culture arose to permit
> > > reuse, and should continue that way. We should simply have told the
> > > FSF: At least when dealign with text, we regard all CC-BY licenses as
> > > compatible with each other and with GFDL, and therefore there's
> > > nothing that needs to be negotiated.
> >
> > It's a great way to get reuses sued by discruntled wikipedians but has
> > no useful function.
>
>
> Reusers have pretty much never followed the GFDL, yet there haven't been
> any
> lawsuits. At best the recent legal contortions will change nothing, at
> worst it will inspire lawsuits where there would have been none.
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fredbaud at fairpoint

May 28, 2009, 5:45 PM

Post #29 of 40 (860 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

> You know ... I can't think of a single instance in which I've ever seen
> Wikipedia content reused in which the GFDL was followed. In EVERY
> instance,
> the attribution has either been messed up or omitted altogether.
>
> I'm not saying this is a good thing, of course.
>
> Newyorkbrad

As one of those who reuses Wikipedia material, I do my best, but ignore
onerous requirements. A link to the article, a link to the editing
history of the article and a link to the license should serve.

Fred

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dgerard at gmail

May 29, 2009, 3:00 AM

Post #30 of 40 (854 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

2009/5/29 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad [at] gmail>:

> You know ... I can't think of a single instance in which I've ever seen
> Wikipedia content reused in which the GFDL was followed. In EVERY instance,
> the attribution has either been messed up or omitted altogether.
> I'm not saying this is a good thing, of course.

That's because the GFDL is monstrously ill-suited to wiki content in
the case of the "suit from persistent insane content author" threat
model. In practice, best-effort is about the best that can be done.
Even then the querulous will try to make trouble for the reusers (see
[[:en:Talk:Freebase]] for a recent example).

Ditching the GFDL in favour of a licence that's actually possible to
keep to in practice is one of the best ideas ever. That other sites
have used the GFDL following Wikimedia's lead is not a sufficient
justification for claims or implications that the GFDL was in any way
adequate for what we do, ever.

- d.

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May 29, 2009, 5:52 AM

Post #31 of 40 (868 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:00 AM, David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail> wrote:

> Ditching the GFDL in favour of a licence that's actually possible to
> keep to in practice is one of the best ideas ever.

You haven't ditched the GFDL though. In fact, the success of your
"relicensing" relies on the claim that you're following it.

Furthermore, you haven't shown that CC-BY-SA is any more "possible to keep
to in practice". CC-BY-SA's history section is even more onerous than the
GFDL's. Not only do you have to keep track of prior versions, but you have
to identify the changes as well.

Sure, you can handwave around it and claim that the authors have implicitly
waived these conditions (perhaps through a terms of service), but that's no
better than the GFDL situation.

This "move" hasn't made anything better, it has only made things worse. The
one good thing it has done is that it has made it much more obvious to
everyone that anything contributed to a Wikimedia project is, essentially
and de facto, public domain (with maybe a twinge of copyleft, though it's
hard to see how even that can be enforced).
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geniice at gmail

May 29, 2009, 7:09 AM

Post #32 of 40 (867 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:00 AM, David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>> Ditching the GFDL in favour of a licence that's actually possible to
>> keep to in practice is one of the best ideas ever.
>
>
> You haven't ditched the GFDL though. In fact, the success of your
> "relicensing" relies on the claim that you're following it.

Strangely no since you would have an awfully hard time trying to
convince a court that by submitting content to wikipedia you were not
giving it permission to use that content in the way content is
typically used on wikipedia sites. The upshot of this is while the
content may be under the GFDL as far as third parties are concerned
the foundation effectively has a non exclusive license to use the
stuff on it's wikipedia website.

Thus the content can be switched to CC-BY-SA without the foundation
haveing to have followed the terms of the GFDL except those required
to allow the content to be used under CC-BY-SA (basically user names)

> Furthermore, you haven't shown that CC-BY-SA is any more "possible to keep
> to in practice". CC-BY-SA's history section is even more onerous than the
> GFDL's. Not only do you have to keep track of prior versions, but you have
> to identify the changes as well.

Nope. It's enough to say their have been changes. "The original work
has been modified" would do in all cases since the license merely
requires that you note that changes have been made. It does not
require that you say what those changes were or how many of them there
were.

--
geni

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May 29, 2009, 12:44 PM

Post #33 of 40 (864 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:09 AM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> 2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> > On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:00 AM, David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail> wrote:
> >
> >> Ditching the GFDL in favour of a licence that's actually possible to
> >> keep to in practice is one of the best ideas ever.
> >
> >
> > You haven't ditched the GFDL though. In fact, the success of your
> > "relicensing" relies on the claim that you're following it.
>
> Strangely no since you would have an awfully hard time trying to
> convince a court that by submitting content to wikipedia you were not
> giving it permission to use that content in the way content is
> typically used on wikipedia sites. The upshot of this is while the
> content may be under the GFDL as far as third parties are concerned
> the foundation effectively has a non exclusive license to use the
> stuff on it's wikipedia website.

I'm not sure where you get the "no" from. The relicensing was done for the
sake of third parties, not for "Wikipedia sites".

> Thus the content can be switched to CC-BY-SA without the foundation
> haveing to have followed the terms of the GFDL except those required
> to allow the content to be used under CC-BY-SA (basically user names)

It can be relicensed under CC-BY-SA by the copyright holders, sure. But you
seem to be implying something more than that. I'm not sure what, though.
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geniice at gmail

May 29, 2009, 12:52 PM

Post #34 of 40 (855 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> I'm not sure where you get the "no" from. The relicensing was done for the
> sake of third parties, not for "Wikipedia sites".

It's means that even if your arguments about wikimedia not following
the GFDL had any validity (of course they don't as has been explained
to you many times) it would not cause any problems with the switch to
the GFDL.

--
geni

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May 29, 2009, 1:07 PM

Post #35 of 40 (856 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:52 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> 2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> > I'm not sure where you get the "no" from. The relicensing was done for
> the
> > sake of third parties, not for "Wikipedia sites".
>
> It's means that even if your arguments about wikimedia not following
> the GFDL had any validity (of course they don't as has been explained
> to you many times) it would not cause any problems with the switch to
> the GFDL.

My comment was that "the success of your 'relicensing' relies on the claim
that you're following it". In other words, the only reason you claim to be
able to relicense content under CC-BY-SA is because you claim the GFDL
allows you to do that (it doesn't actually say that this can be done, but
apparently you claim that "republish" means the same as "relicense").
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geniice at gmail

May 29, 2009, 2:30 PM

Post #36 of 40 (855 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> My comment was that "the success of your 'relicensing' relies on the claim
> that you're following it". In other words, the only reason you claim to be
> able to relicense content under CC-BY-SA is because you claim the GFDL
> allows you to do that (it doesn't actually say that this can be done, but
> apparently you claim that "republish" means the same as "relicense").

The GFDL allows the switch. Attempting to build a case around the
meaning of "republish" in the context is extremely unlikely to be
successful.

However it is legally very questionable if there is any requirement
for the GFDL to be followed on the wikimedia websites since they can
operate under their defacto non exclusive license to use the material.
In other words there foundation has the right to host the material
under the GFDL and now CC-BY-SA-3.0 but it is highly questionable if
that is the only way it has the right to host it.

--
geni

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May 29, 2009, 6:08 PM

Post #37 of 40 (851 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 5:30 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> 2009/5/29 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> > My comment was that "the success of your 'relicensing' relies on the
> claim
> > that you're following it". In other words, the only reason you claim to
> be
> > able to relicense content under CC-BY-SA is because you claim the GFDL
> > allows you to do that (it doesn't actually say that this can be done, but
> > apparently you claim that "republish" means the same as "relicense").
>
> The GFDL allows the switch.

Thanks, that you are claiming that is exactly my point.

> Attempting to build a case around the
> meaning of "republish" in the context is extremely unlikely to be
> successful.

Once you've established a prima facie case of copyright infringement, the
burden of proof is on the defense to show that they have a valid license.
The copyright holder doesn't have to build any case at all. The burden of
proof is on the reuser to show that "republish" means "relicense".

> However it is legally very questionable if there is any requirement
> for the GFDL to be followed on the wikimedia websites since they can
> operate under their defacto non exclusive license to use the material.

I never claimed the GFDL does have to be followed on the wikimedia
websites. In fact, considering that I claimed that the WMF never has
followed the GFDL, I pretty much implied the opposite.

Again, my comment was that "the success of your 'relicensing' relies on the
claim that you're following [the GFDL]". A defacto non-exclusive license to
use the material is not a defacto non-exclusive license to relicence the
material under CC-BY-SA.

You even say as much yourself when you say "The GFDL allows the switch."
Your claim is that the GFDL allows it, not that a defacto non-exclusive
license allows it.
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geniice at gmail

May 29, 2009, 6:26 PM

Post #38 of 40 (854 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> Once you've established a prima facie case of copyright infringement, the
> burden of proof is on the defense to show that they have a valid license.
> The copyright holder doesn't have to build any case at all. The burden of
> proof is on the reuser to show that "republish" means "relicense".

Copyright is civil law. It's balance of probability and all that. And
due to the way wikimedia sites function switching the license tags
will effectively republish the material.

> I never claimed the GFDL does have to be followed on the wikimedia
> websites. In fact, considering that I claimed that the WMF never has
> followed the GFDL, I pretty much implied the opposite.
>
> Again, my comment was that "the success of your 'relicensing' relies on the
> claim that you're following [the GFDL]". A defacto non-exclusive license to
> use the material is not a defacto non-exclusive license to relicence the
> material under CC-BY-SA.
>
> You even say as much yourself when you say "The GFDL allows the switch."
> Your claim is that the GFDL allows it, not that a defacto non-exclusive
> license allows it.

The material has been released under the GFDL nothing wikimedia can do
can change that. Therefor it can be switched to CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Really Anthony even by your standards that is a truly pathetic piece of FUD.

--
geni

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May 29, 2009, 7:07 PM

Post #39 of 40 (845 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:26 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> The material has been released under the GFDL nothing wikimedia can do
> can change that.

Sure.

> Therefor it can be switched to CC-BY-SA-3.0.
>

{{citation needed}}...or should I say {{dubious}}?

Really Anthony even by your standards that is a truly pathetic piece of FUD.

FUD or skepticism? I don't believe I've made any claims which you haven't
agreed are correct. As for your claims, my response has been "oh really?
how so?"
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May 29, 2009, 7:14 PM

Post #40 of 40 (843 views)
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Re: Third-party GFDL text irrevocably incompatible with Wikipedia as of August 1 [In reply to]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:26 PM, geni <geniice [at] gmail> wrote:

> 2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
> > Once you've established a prima facie case of copyright infringement, the
> > burden of proof is on the defense to show that they have a valid license.
> > The copyright holder doesn't have to build any case at all. The burden
> of
> > proof is on the reuser to show that "republish" means "relicense".
>
> Copyright is civil law. It's balance of probability and all that.

So what is the probability that "republish" means "relicense". And whose
intent should we consider? Normally it would be the intent of the one
granting the license, but since the license wasn't even written at the time
that the person allegedly granted it... I can't imagine a case even getting
to that point.
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