Wikipedia to be Licensed Under Creative Commons

Strange... by jx100 · 2007-12-01 08:39 · Score: 1

I thought RMS was not a fan of the Creative Commons license.

Re:Strange... by Pantero+Blanco · 2007-12-01 08:45 · Score: 1

I thought RMS was not a fan of the Creative Commons license.

That depends on which one you're talking about. My understanding is that some of the CC licenses aren't compatible with what he wants, but others are fine.
Re:Strange... by s20451 · 2007-12-01 08:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

Can you include a GPL code snippet in a Creative Commons document (e.g., to illustrate a concept)?

It's not a simple question. For instance, it is ironic to note that you cannot legally include GPL code in a document licensed under the GNU Free[sic] Documentation License.

--
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 08:54 · Score: 1, Interesting

Doesn't small snippets fall under fair use?
Re:Strange... by kebes · 2007-12-01 08:54 · Score: 5, Informative

I heard RMS give a talk where he criticized Creative Commons (the organization) because not all of the licenses they publish guarantee freedom. As he put it (paraphrasing from memory): "If you take the intersection of all the licenses offered by Creative Commons, you get nothing. There are no core freedoms that all the licenses guarantee."

Basically, RMS thinks that some of the licenses are great (the ones that allow redistribution, derivative works, and promote share-alike), but thinks others are terrible. RMS is famous for being careful with words, and dislikes the fact that when you say "this is available under a Creative Commons license" it basically means nothing (until you know which specific license is being used, you don't know what freedoms are being guaranteed).

Of course the FSF's intention is to promote freedom, whereas the Creative Commons organization has as its core mandate something more along the lines of "promote understanding of copyright law, and show copyright holders that they don't have to use a maximal, all-rights-reserved copyright, but that they can distribute under more permissive licenses, too." The creative commons organization emphasizes author choice instead of user freedom.

Still, all that having been said, there is some clear overlap between the CC licenses and the GPL. So, an appropriate license can certainly be compatible, and I'm fairly confident that RMS approves of those freedom-granting licenses.
Re:Strange... by Brian+Gordon · 2007-12-01 09:00 · Score: 1, Flamebait

So sorry if every license doesn't line up with RMS's ideology. I like CC's approach- give the creator a smorgasbord of possible licenses, to allow him to easily license his work the way he wants. That's the point of a prewritten license.
Re:Strange... by stinerman · 2007-12-01 09:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Well that isn't the main point.

If I say a piece of software is Open Source or Free Software, you have a rough idea of what you can do with it.
If I say a work is available under a Creative Commons license, I haven't told you anything because the licenses are so diverse.
Re:Strange... by moosesocks · 2007-12-01 09:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

RMS is an idealist, whilst the people behind the CC organization are pragmatists.

I'll concede that both sorts of people are necessary, although I certainly know which one I'd put my money behind.

--
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Strange... by jx100 · 2007-12-01 09:48 · Score: 1

That is exactly what I was thinking of. I heard exactly what you present when I heard RMS talk about copyright a while back.

After reading the clarifications, this is the license in question. It certainly seems to be something RMS would approve of.
Re:Strange... by Brian+Gordon · 2007-12-01 09:49 · Score: 0

So don't say under a creative commons license. Open Source licenses are very diverse too- for one, I want to know whether my code is going to catch the GPL virus, and whether I can use it for commercial purposes. "Open Source" doesn't tell you that- even microsoft's insane Shared Source is technically open.
Re:Strange... by Asm-Coder · 2007-12-01 10:52 · Score: 3, Informative

A) You may use GPL code for commercial purposes. NOWHERE in the GPL does it restrict you from accepting money for the software. It simply requires that the source be distributed with it.

B) As far as your concerns about the "GPL virus," that is simply a matter of keeping your sources straight. Don't include GPL source if you don't want to release the source yourself. Simple. Most other software licenses, (everything but public domain) would require that you reimburse the author for your use, or whatever other condition they choose, so, this problem is not unique to the GPL. Basically, either write it yourself, or keep tabs on where the code comes from.
Re:Strange... by smittyoneeach · 2007-12-01 11:01 · Score: 1

So sorry if every license doesn't line up with RMS's ideology.
I taper off from agreement with RMS after a while, as well.
However, he's an important piece of the overall picture.
Kinda like Crazy Uncle Eddie in the family photo; 'twould be incomplete without him.
Seriously: the random bits of agitation are critical to prevent settling into a monoculture.
He makes us think, even if the thoughts fell like a breechload occasionally.

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Re:Strange... by mdwh2 · 2007-12-01 11:32 · Score: 1

and whether I can use it for commercial purposes

If it's Open Source, the answer will always be yes, by definition.

I'm not sure what you mean by "GPL virus".
Re:Strange... by jonbryce · 2007-12-01 11:56 · Score: 1

I think he is happy with the attribution share alike licence, but definitely not happy with, for example, the non-commercial licence. I guess his main concern is people like you refer to it as one licence, and don't realise that some licences are OK (in his view) and others aren't.
Re:Strange... by darthflo · 2007-12-01 11:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

If you say a piece of software is Open Source or Free Software you are talking about one of many Open Source licenses. You could mean the very popular GPL, you could mean a BSD license, the Apache license, SUN's CDDL(?) or even Microsoft's PL, all of which are quite different and may require effort to find out what I can and can't do.
If you say a work is available under a Creative Commons license, you are talking about one of many possible combinations of all CC restrictions. If you, however, say a work is available under a cc-by-nc-sa license, you have told me I may use your work in mine as long as you are attributed, my works aren't comercially and my works are available under cc-by-nc-sa. The five other possibilites are similarly easy to understand.
Re:Strange... by It'sYerMam · 2007-12-01 12:13 · Score: 1

As far as your concerns about the "GPL virus," that is simply a matter of keeping your sources straight.

That's what he's saying - if you obtain "Open Source" code you don't know whether you're going to catch the virus or not.

--
im in ur .sig, writin ur memes.
Re:Strange... by RPoet · 2007-12-01 12:35 · Score: 1

I thought RMS was not a fan of the Creative Commons license.

That's a funny way to state it. What he dislikes is the tendency of people to look at CC as one license, when it's really just a bunch of separate licenses. Your saying "the Create Commons license" indicates that he has a good point. So when people talk about a work being under "Creative Commons", they're not saying anything at all about how free or unfree it is.

Well, he also dislikes Creative Commons because some of their licenses does not grant the four freedoms, so he has to disassociate himself from Creative Commons at large. (Which is fine, and consistent of him)

--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Re:Strange... by nadaou · 2007-12-01 12:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

RMS is an idealist, whilst the people behind the CC organization are pragmatists.

I'll concede that both sorts of people are necessary, although I certainly know which one I'd put my money behind.

Me too. Years of observation has shown (time and again) that all those wacky things RMS warns about generally come true a year or two later. An idealist with a good sense of how human nature and "the market" works is a powerful powerful thing. Not all idealists are sitting in the meadow chasing dandelions.

Alternatively you might pigeon-hole him as a very in-touch cynic. In that sense consider RMS's fanaticism of protecting Freedoms from the point of view of never underestimating the creativity and number of sleazy people out there ready to make to quick buck and rip you off if they can.

--
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 12:54 · Score: 0

whilst
Please stop using this word.
Re:Strange... by mrsteveman1 · 2007-12-01 12:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

GPL may not restrict commercial use and sale of software, but it sure makes it difficult. Like it or not, a large amount of software written today is written for financial gain. GPL makes it quite literally impossible to ensure you get paid for your work, because anyone who buys your software also gets the code and full right to give it out to whoever they want to.

It's good that some companies can make money on services and support (Red Hat etc), but that doesn't work everywhere.

There needs to be an open source license that gives you everything the GPL does, but only to people who paid for the software. Anyone who has a license for the software can modify it all they want, give out their modifications and even complete modified versions, but only to others who have a license for the software.
Re:Strange... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2007-12-01 13:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Years of observation has shown (time and again) that all those wacky things RMS warns about generally come true a year or two later.

It's funny you say that. I would have said exactly the opposite. My years of observation have shown (time and again) that the software world carries on developing new things for commercial, charitable and personal use purposes, without any great disaster happening because it isn't all licensed under something like the GPL.

Meanwhile, all the claimed benefits of the GPL have turned out to be rather shallow in practice. Forking of major projects happens relatively rarely. Most end users of most software don't really want to be able to hack the code (not least because most of them wouldn't even know where to start). Those who are willing to share their work with the community get tied up in silly arguments over the technicalities of the licences in question, and that problem has been made worse by the introduction of the GPL2 vs. GPL3 debate. The entire OSS world has not collapsed under the weight of patent claims, nor is it ever likely to with or without GPL3's help for the simple reason that many major businesses now rely on it and they have patents of their own to fight back with, just as everyone in the commercial world has done for years.

On the whole, with due respect to his past achievements, I'd say these days RMS talks a lot but often comes across badly and isn't particularly relevant in the modern software development world. I'd back the pragmatist every time.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:Strange... by moosesocks · 2007-12-01 13:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Perhaps we misunderstood each other. I prefer CC to RMS.

For one, RMS needs to hire a good PR frontman, or start practicing good hygiene and work on his interpersonal skills if he wants to be taken seriously, or to lead a socially-responsible revolution.... otherwise, you start to look like Michael Moore.

I will easily concede that CC would almost certainly not have happened without RMS and the GPL (and I really *do* appreciate the original visionaries for that). However, CC is presented in a manner that's much more easily digested by artists and the public.

CC does not mandate that works are necessarily free, although it *does* give the artists a great degree of flexibility over how they want their work to be displayed, presented, or shared. It's a very nice transition between draconian copyright measures, and total freedom of information.

Hopefully we'll transition to a more free society, but this is a transition that will take a long time to occur, and I think that CC is perhaps our greatest hope for this actually happening without drastic measures.

It's really easy for this to slip into a socialism vs. communism debate. Within any "revolution", there are concessions that have to be made, and it's always a tough call where to draw the line. Personally, I think that we'll continue to have a balance of GPL, LGPL, and BSD-style, CC, etc... licenses, as each suits a rather specific purpose.

(The "future" clause absolutely seals the deal, making the GPL completely and totally unacceptable, and is completely contrary to the spirit of the FSF, not to mention being wide open to abuse)

--
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Re:Strange... by Achromatic1978 · 2007-12-01 13:28 · Score: 1

And NOWHERE in the GPs post did he suggest that he couldn't use the GPL for commercial purposes. Let's not get all reactionary.
Re:Strange... by Teancum · 2007-12-01 14:38 · Score: 1

What he dislikes is the tendency of people to look at CC as one license, when it's really just a bunch of separate licenses. Your saying "the Create Commons license" indicates that he has a good point. So when people talk about a work being under "Creative Commons", they're not saying anything at all about how free or unfree it is.

You know, this is exactly the problem I have with Creative Commons licenses. You get tripped up with them in so many ways...even if you think you have a good idea of what you are talking about... that going for the fine points of each license is hard to grasp. And there are so many different CC licenses that only somebody who is an ultra hardcore CC-promoter/fan would really know the subtle difference.

I'm sure a hardcore fan of the CC suite would be able to explain the differences between the CC-BY license, the CC-BY-SA license, and the CC-SA license. All three allow commercial re-usage (unlike the CC-SA-NC license... or is that the CC-BY-SA-NC... or simply CC-NC?) And these aren't the only Creative Commons licenses that are released by this group.

I realize that this is about a specific Creative Commons license (the CC-BY-SA license) being adapted to work closer to the GFDL, but it can get very confusing if you don't pay attention to these little details. I don't know how a professional journalist in the mainstream media is going to cope with trying to sort all of this out... presuming that they even make a reasonable attempt to try and figure this out. There is no doubt something this big will eventually make its way into the mainstream press media.
Re:Strange... by Teancum · 2007-12-01 14:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

There needs to be an open source license that gives you everything the GPL does, but only to people who paid for the software. Anyone who has a license for the software can modify it all they want, give out their modifications and even complete modified versions, but only to others who have a license for the software.

Hmmm... This is a good thought here.

The closest that I've seen to something like this is what the old Borland did with the original Delphi source code. It still belonged to Borland, but they gave you the complete source code for nearly the entire compiler, and in theory you were permitted to share changes to that source code with anybody else who bought a licensed copy of that compiler. It in fact was a fairly common practice among Delphi programmers.

They also did something that was fairly unusual for compiler writers (although fairly common now): They explicitly granted license for the libraries for you to use in any way you wanted... as long as you gave them only others who paid for the license. And the binaries were completely free of copyright restrictions for the end-user (meaning the software developer/publisher). You don't worry about this with GCC, but other major compilers did have some pretty profound restrictions on how you were "allowed" to redistribute your software once it ran through their compiler... or be required to pay some sort of licensing fee for the library files needed to run your software.

An "open source" license like you are talking about still doesn't deal with what happens to abandonware, which IMHO is one of the real strengths of the GPL: If MySQL A.B. goes completely out of business, the MySQL software will still be available from many sources, and you will even be able to find people willing to make patches for the software and make future updates and releases. There is no GPL'd abandonware, other than the thought that a particular development group has disbanded (like the ReiserFS group run by Han Reiser).

Requiring somebody to purchase a license from a single entity of some sort gives a worry that the people collecting the money from the licenses may not be available if you don't have the license and really need the software. Under this sort of arrangement, how would you solve this problem without resorting to something like the GPL?
Re:Strange... by nadaou · 2007-12-01 16:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Aside- That was perhaps the most reasonable reply I have ever gotten to a /. post, and it happened on a religious thread none the less.

I think it silly to enter into a debate on which license is the best, I fully agree that authors having a full quiver of licenses to choose from is a good thing as different situations and personalties will warrant the need for a different license.
(The "future" clause absolutely seals the deal, making the GPL completely and totally unacceptable, and is completely contrary to the spirit of the FSF, not to mention being wide open to abuse)

I think you misread it. There is no binding "future" clause in the license.
Term 9 of the GPLv2 states:

"9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation."

It is explicitly up to the author to state the license (thus version) used in their statement of copyright. If the author states "GPL version 2" then it is v2 and only v2. If they say ">=v2" then you, as the user, have the option to use "any future version" of GPL from the FSF. The FSF states that the reason they ask for >= is to avoid zombie code in case there is some legal bug found in the GPLv2 one day rendering it invalid, and the author has since disappeared.

If you have ceded your copyright onto the FSF (as they ask), well then it's their choice. But if you say "GPL version 2" and you retained the copyright, then it is that and that only.

--
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Re:Strange... by hawaiian717 · 2007-12-01 18:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

Requiring somebody to purchase a license from a single entity of some sort gives a worry that the people collecting the money from the licenses may not be available if you don't have the license and really need the software. Under this sort of arrangement, how would you solve this problem without resorting to something like the GPL? One option might be to have some sort of "abandonware" clause in the license that states that in the event the company or any successor company is no longer willing or able to make licenses available for purchase, the software license automatically converts to GPL (or Apache or MPL or BSD or whatever free software license they like).

--
End of Line.
Re:Strange... by argiedot · 2007-12-01 21:21 · Score: 1

I'm sure a hardcore fan of the CC suite would be able to explain the differences between the CC-BY license, the CC-BY-SA license, and the CC-SA license. All three allow commercial re-usage (unlike the CC-SA-NC license... or is that the CC-BY-SA-NC... or simply CC-NC?) And these aren't the only Creative Commons licenses that are released by this group.

I'm no expert, but doesn't the Creative Commons actually have all the licences written in two different forms? One is legalese and the other is a simple English explanation of what it means. In any case, BY = Attribution; SA = Share Alike, you must use the same licence; NC = Non-commercial, self evident. Now the thing is, you can put these together in 4 ways (?) BY, BY-SA, BY-NC, BY-NC-SA. That's for these kind of licences. You can also release it to the Public Domain and other stuff and you can add No Derivatives. It's quite straightforward.

And no offence meant, but I think any professional journalist should be able to understand this. I don't work with licences or code, and I'm not a lawyer and it takes mere seconds to check this. I would assume that someone who is getting paid should put a little more effort than that. Anyway, here's an example: BY-NC-SA 3.0
Re:Strange... by empaler · 2007-12-02 01:06 · Score: 1

If it is clearly marked by a copyright/GPL notice, I don't see why not.
Re:Strange... by Brian+Gordon · 2007-12-02 02:49 · Score: 1

Idiot moderators, why am I modded down for flamebait?!
Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-02 05:25 · Score: 0

That's what he's saying - if you obtain "Open Source" code you don't know whether you're going to catch the virus or not.
Yes you do. This is hardly rocket science. The GPL includes an entire section giving detailed instructions on how to indicate that code is licensed under it. If source code does not carry a copyright notice stating that it's covered by the GPL, then it isn't. (Unless somebody else has violated the GPL by removing copyright notices, but that's their problem, not yours.)

Claiming that the GPL is somehow a stealthy thing that might leap out and get you when you're not looking is FUD, pure and simple. If it's a "virus", it's an STD - you're not going to catch it just by shaking hands with someone. You basically don't have to worry about it at all unless you're behaving irresponsibly. In which case you frankly deserve everything you get.
Re:Strange... by stinerman · 2007-12-02 13:14 · Score: 1

And now we've come full circle.
So don't say under a creative commons license.
This was RMS's original point.
"Open Source" doesn't tell you that- even microsoft's insane Shared Source is technically open.
I used "Open Source" (note the capitals) to denote a license that meets the OSI standards for being Open Source; those standards are well defined, but somewhat diverse. I probably should have been more clear in my meaning. The Shared Source license is open in that you can look at it, but it is not OSI-approved and hence, is not Open Source.
Re:Strange... by MPolo · 2007-12-02 20:20 · Score: 1

The point that your parent was trying to make is that much GPL code is passed out as "Open Source", and you have to (gasp) read the license to know if it is GPL or MozPL or whatever. This, he implies, is analogous to the situation with Creative Commons, where you have to (gasp) read the license to know if it is ByAttribution, ShareAlike, or whatever.
Re:Strange... by Brian+Gordon · 2007-12-03 15:40 · Score: 1

No.. RMS is saying don't use the licenses because the naming is awkward. I'm saying use the licenses, just don't use the awkward naming! His is the stupid position. And for the love of God, if I get modded flamebait one more time in this story for criticising RMS, I'm.. I'm going to start metamodding!

Fantastic by pbooktebo · 2007-12-01 08:42 · Score: 2, Informative

I much prefer CC and use it in my own work frequently. I've contributed to Wikipedia many times, and think this is a great move. It will also boost CC, which deserves all the exposure it can get.

Won't make any difference by MLCT · 2007-12-01 08:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Presuming that the GFDL doesn't allow commutation with the CC licence then this change (if true, since the only source in the submission is a blog) won't make any difference unless wikipedia is wiped and they start again. Everything up until today on wikipedia is licensed under the GFDL, so that content will always be under the GFDL, because that is the licence the contributors agreed to when they submitted content (apart from a few who have made statements releasing their work of more restrictions, such as PD), and that licence can't be revoked or replaced by a CC-BY-SA licence without their permission (all hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them).

Difference? by InvisblePinkUnicorn · 2007-12-01 08:48 · Score: 1

What are the differences between Creative Commons and their current GFDL?

Re:Difference? by Aluvus · 2007-12-01 09:33 · Score: 5, Informative

Principally that the GFDL has some clauses that make odd but relatively minor requirements. It bars the makers of derivative works from removing any "invariant sections" from the original work (does not apply to Wikipedia). Distributing any GFDL work requires that you distribute with it a "transparent" copy of the entire license, which is impractical for a single printed Wikipedia article, for instance. But the core rights that the GFDL grants (duplication, derivative works, commerical or non-commercial use) are the same as those granted by CC-BY-SA. The GFDL just contains some "FSF-isms".

Appropriately enough, the Wikipedia article on the GFDL includes a list of criticisms that cover this topic.

--
Never mistake "can" for "should".
Re:Difference? by AxelBoldt · 2007-12-01 11:13 · Score: 4, Informative

What are the differences between Creative Commons and their current GFDL?

GFDL requires that so-called "Invariant Sections" (talking about the author and their relationship to the subject matter) be carried forward into future versions unchanged. Wikipedia articles don't have Invariant Sections, but you could take a Wikipedia article, change it, and then add an invariant section; everybody who wanted to use your changes would then have to keep the invariant section intact.
GFDL also requires that the title of the work be changed after every modification, and that sections titled "Acknowledgment" and "Dedication" be kept intact. Nobody really cares about these clauses, and Wikipedia has long ignored them.
If you want to redistribute a (modified) version of a work, the GFDL also requires that you accompany it with a copy of the GFDL and list at least five of the principal authors of the work on its title page. That's also widely ignored, by Wikipedia and others.
A work licensed under CC-BY-SA can be relicensed under any later version of CC-BY-SA and also under any license deemed equivalent by Creative Commons (since CC-BY-SA 3.0). A work licensed under GFDL can only be relicensed under a later version if the licensor explicitly added a clause to that effect; the Wikipedia license agreement contains such a clause, but a downstream distributor could remove it.
Re:Difference? by tverbeek · 2007-12-01 12:07 · Score: 1

A key difference (and one of the main reasons Wikitravel.org uses CC-BY-SA instead of GFDL) is the requirement that a copy of the license be included with any printed copies of the material. That's a reasonable requirement for printing a GFDL book, but not if you're printing individual pages from a travel guide.

--
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Re:Difference? by Teancum · 2007-12-01 13:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

GFDL requires that so-called "Invariant Sections" (talking about the author and their relationship to the subject matter) be carried forward into future versions unchanged. Wikipedia articles don't have Invariant Sections, but you could take a Wikipedia article, change it, and then add an invariant section; everybody who wanted to use your changes would then have to keep the invariant section intact.

GFDL also requires that the title of the work be changed after every modification, and that sections titled "Acknowledgment" and "Dedication" be kept intact. Nobody really cares about these clauses, and Wikipedia has long ignored them.

If you add an invariant section, the legal requirement for keeping those invariant sections is only to those whom you distribute that new version of the content after this modification. It doesn't apply to earlier versions...and Wikipedia would as a matter of custom delete any invariant sections and material that would have to be kept.

But on the whole, you are largely correct that Wikipedia does ignore this section of the GFDL by simply prohibiting as a matter of policy the creation of any invariant sections. There may be some GFDL'd content that was added to Wikipedia which contained invariant sections... and that content would either have to be deleted, or be in technical violation of the terms of the GFDL. The problem here is that there is, comparatively speaking, so little actual content outside of Wikimedia projects written using the GFDL that this is usually not a problem for copyright violation situations.
If you want to redistribute a (modified) version of a work, the GFDL also requires that you accompany it with a copy of the GFDL and list at least five of the principal authors of the work on its title page. That's also widely ignored, by Wikipedia and others.

I've complained about how the terms of this requirement might actually be met using the current interface on Wikipedia and the MediaWiki software. All of the raw information necessary to meet this requirement is kept on the servers, but it is not very easy to access and a pain to try and obtain. There is also no simple mechanism to distinguish between a vandal whose edits have been completely removed, and a serious contributor who has added some very real meat to the articles. Most lists of authors on Wikipedia articles include not only the "principal authors" but also vandals, crackpots, sysops (who clean up the mess from vandals), and people stopping by to fix the spelling of just one or two words.

The GFDL is also very weak in its formal definition over what might even constitute an author at all, and it is very possible that Willy on Wheels (look it up on Wikipedia if you don't know him) could get equal credit with RMS on the article regarding the Free Software Foundation. But that is a problem with the GFDL, not Wikipedia.

This is, however, something I've paid careful attention to when I've distributed Wikimedia content outside of the Wikimedia projects themselves. And that is something I have done... not just talked about.

Where are the source links? by palegray.net · 2007-12-01 08:51 · Score: 1

Who else has published this news? I'm all for it if it's true, because it has the potential to immensely increase visibility for the Creative Commons project. I'd just like to see some other sources for verification.

As far as the direct impact of Wikipedia's usability from a sharing-of-content perspective, I don't really see it making a huge difference. I'm not a lawyer, though, and haven't spent time comparing the two licensing models in detail. Anyone care to comment?

--
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.

Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by cduffy · 2007-12-01 08:51 · Score: 5, Informative

If you RTFM, it's not that they're moving Wikipedia from GFDL to CC-BY-SA; rather, the GFDL is becoming compatible with CC-BY-SA. If the GFDL license in use had the usual "or any future version" clause in use, then the content was initially given with permission for relicensing under this new version -- so no problem at all.

Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by MLCT · 2007-12-01 08:58 · Score: 1

Fair enough, I didn't RTFA because it is a blog. In that case the submissions impression that this is some initiative through wikipedia is misleading. This is all in the hands of the FSF and how long it takes then to agree on a new version could be anyone's guess. Given it is 5 years since the last version I won't hold my breath.
Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by Goobergunch · 2007-12-01 09:17 · Score: 3, Informative

If the GFDL license in use had the usual "or any future version" clause in use, then the content was initially given with permission for relicensing under this new version -- so no problem at all. Yup. Wikipedia edits are licensed under "GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts."
Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by cduffy · 2007-12-01 10:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

Given that it was a joint announcement between the Wikimedia Foundation, the FSF and Creative Commons, it's safe to say that there's more than just the FSF involved. Granted, they have the final say -- but there are at least two other organizations working with them and, in doing so, pushing this process along.

I'm not sure that "didn't RTFA because it was a blog" approach is entirely fair; after all, why trust an ultra- (and often inaccurately-) summarized blog entry (ie. the slashdot summary) more than a complete one?
Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 11:20 · Score: 0

So if the FSF is changing the GFDL to be CC BY-SA compliant, does this mean this mean the long standing dispute within Debian over the Freeness of the GFDL is over? Does this mean Debian will finally ship gcc (and other GNU software) with its man page? One can only hope...
Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by tepples · 2007-12-01 13:26 · Score: 1

So if the FSF is changing the GFDL to be CC BY-SA compliant, does this mean this mean the long standing dispute within Debian over the Freeness of the GFDL is over? Last time I looked, Debian wasn't happy with the six Creative Commons licenses either.
Re:Ahh, but they're actually changing the GFDL by tverbeek · 2007-12-02 04:55 · Score: 1

If you dig a little more deeply to the statement by the Wikimedia Foundation, you'll see that they are planning to change licenses. GFDL 2.0 is just going to be intermediary revision, one which adds a clause allowing any massively multiauthor wiki to be relicensed under CC-By-SA.

--
http://alternatives.rzero.com/

No-one asked me. by BillGodfrey · 2007-12-01 08:54 · Score: 1

I'd say that I'd have liked to be asked before my stuff was re-licenced, but everything I worked on and cared about on Wikipedia was deleted for not being notable enough, or something. Oh well.

I'm stoopid. by palegray.net · 2007-12-01 08:54 · Score: 1

I had mis-clicked the link to the blog post, so I missed the verifying link :). Video verification, no less...

--
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.

Re:They can't by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 08:59 · Score: 1, Informative

Oh but contributors agreed to...

10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

"[...] If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation."

That's why the FSF is involved.

Good luck with that.... by KillerCow · 2007-12-01 08:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

...considering that every contribution made to Wiki was made under the GFDL, not CC. Are they going to get permission from all of the past contributors to change the license, or are they going to throw it all away and start from scratch? They don't own the content (it was licensed to them under GFDL) so they just can't change the license.

Re:Good luck with that.... by Goobergunch · 2007-12-01 09:07 · Score: 1

Meh, all of my contributions have been multi-licensed under CC-by-sa 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5. Of course, I'm not exactly sure which version of CC-by-sa the FSF plans on making the GFDL compatible with, as version 3.0 hasn't been that widely adopted (i.e. it doesn't even have a Wikipedia multi-licensing template).
Re:Good luck with that.... by Teancum · 2007-12-01 09:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Actually, what happened here is that Jimbo Wales basically said "We, Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, represent 90% of all GFDL content. Here is what I (note the change in noun case here) want the GFDL to read!"

So Mr. Wales and Mike Godwin strong-armed the Free Software Foundation into using the "or later version" clause of the GFDL to change it to one of the Creative Commons licenses... more or less.

This would be like (well, not quite like, but this gets close to the point) the Free Software Foundation changing the GPL to be "more compatable with the Microsoft EULA". And RMS gets his own private space station paid for by Gates, and sent into space by a Paul Allen spacecraft.

Yeah, that's real freedom alright!

Trust me when I say that the shit has just hit the proverbial fan right now, and it isn't going to be pretty to see what the fallout of this is going to be like. I'm going to have to unsubscribe from the Foundation mailing list as this one announcement is going to reverberate with negative feelings from many Wikimedia users like there is no tomorrow.

I know this is a good intention on the part of everybody involved, but the Wikimedia Foundation is very much out of touch with their main user base, and has been for some time. Mike Godwin told me that my contributions may be removed from Wikipedia (all 1400 or so edits... I have no idea how that is going to be accomplished) if I object to this new license arrangement. It will be interesting to see what is going to happen.

It might be enough to cause a major fork of Wikipedia if this isn't dealt with in a judicious manner.
Re:Good luck with that.... by capnez · 2007-12-01 10:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

Trust me when I say that the shit has just hit the proverbial fan right now
I think you are exaggerating. Yes, the mailing list, discussion pages, forums, blogs and the like will probably all flow over. However, I think when people realize that this is not the end of the world (i.e., Wikipedia) within the next five minutes, they will calm down. A lot of water will flow down the rivers of the world until this change is actually implemented. Until then, a lot of voices and opinions will be heard by everyone involved. From the board resolution:
It is hereby resolved that:
* The Foundation requests that the GNU Free Documentation License be modified in the fashion proposed by the FSF to allow migration by mass collaborative projects to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license;
* Upon the announcement of that relicensing, the Foundation will initiate a process of community discussion and voting before making a final decision on relicensing.
So I don't think this will happen anytime too soon. I estimate that we will see the final implementation of that by late 2008 at the earliest. First the FSF will have to change to GFDL (with Wikimedia input, obviously), only then can Wikimedia and the community review the new GFDL, and only then it can actually be put in place.

--
Axe me while I slumber
Re:Good luck with that.... by Jay+L · 2007-12-01 10:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trust me when I say that the shit has just hit the proverbial fan right now...I'm going to have to unsubscribe...my contributions may be removed from Wikipedia

I don't know if you're a big muckety-muck in the Greater Wiki Community; maybe you are, in which case I risk making a huge ass of myself. (I tried Googling for you, but all I kept coming up with was your many UserPages.) And, of course, it's always sad when people feel slighted or disenfranchised. That said:

I feel fairly certain that anyone who, by comparison to his own views, considers Richard Stallman and the FSF to be a bunch of money-grubbing, compromising, unprincipled corporate hacks is someone whose writing I'm not going to miss.
Re:Good luck with that.... by maxume · 2007-12-01 10:30 · Score: 1

When you say that poo has met blade, do you mean that someone has exceeded their rights, or do you mean that some group of people is going to feel slighted?

The unfortunate reality is that the people who feel slighted simply weren't careful enough with their efforts(in that they relied on trust to cover this or that contingency that was important to them).

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Good luck with that.... by Ronald+Dumsfeld · 2007-12-01 10:39 · Score: 1

Talk about dramatic?

I have around 20,000 edits on one of the projects; were I to throw the toys out of the pram in this manner there'd be at least 50-100 articles need deleted. I hate seeing information being destroyed - when you start editing Wikipedia you're embracing its goals, "sum of all human knowledge freely available" and all that.

The parent post? I mean, c'mon "It's Mike Godwin... He must be evil... He's a lawyer and I don't believe what he says."

Both the summary and the blog post incorrectly characterise how Wikipedia can change license. The only way is the "or later" clause, which would be the next version of the GFDL. How changes to that would be implemented to make it compatible with CC-BY-SA is something I'm not going to speculate on, but the doom-sayers already assume the worst.

That's just like saying Jimmy Wales should never have started Wikipedia in the first place because it would attract trolls and vandals.

--
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Re:Good luck with that.... by owlnation · 2007-12-01 10:44 · Score: 1

I know this is a good intention on the part of everybody involved, but the Wikimedia Foundation is very much out of touch with their main user base, and has been for some time.
Not sure how out of touch they are... I note that the wikipedia fundraising icon at the top of every page has a little green nazi giving the sieg heil salute. That suggests that Wikimedia is understanding its userbase with insight, subtle acknowledgment and encouragement. I'm sure the wikicabals will be proud to salute back.
Re:Good luck with that.... by Titoxd · 2007-12-01 11:20 · Score: 1

It will still be GFDL. But the new GFDL (1.3? 2.0?) will be compatible with CC-BY-SA. As far as I know, Wikipedia isn't changing licenses, at the headline implies; the license itself is changing, and that is a rather important semantic difference.
Re:Good luck with that.... by Jugalator · 2007-12-01 11:30 · Score: 1

They don't own the content (it was licensed to them under GFDL) so they just can't change the license. But they aren't switching license. They're making it compatible with a particular variant of the CC 3.0 license.

--
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Good luck with that.... by Teancum · 2007-12-01 12:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

Richard Stallman has given up some of the goals of the GFDL by doing this. I have no doubt about that.

BTW, it was Mike Godwin who was telling me that I could remove my contributions, after a long and drawn out thread where I simply said that I insist that my contributions remain under the GFDL, and not a CC license.

As for RMS being a money grubber... I know that seems out of character here. It certainly seems rather bizzare that it would be Jimbo Wales making this announcement instead of RMS that one of the key FSF licenses is undergoing a major change. Where is RMS in all of this? It is also very much out of character for him (RMS) to stay quiet about something this major coming from the FSF. Perhaps that will be the next /. posting about this topic.

I've had some deep reservations about some of the actions of Jimbo based on how he is operating his very much for-profit Wikia organization. My major concern is how he has been squashing Wikimedia projects that might be in competition with his for-profit websites, and killing some rather interesting and creative concepts that have risen through the muck to become likely sister Wikimedia projects.

I guess I'm concerned that this is a done deal, and not trying to float a suggestion that perhaps it would be a good idea to merge the two licenses to gague what the community opinions on this would be. I heard about discussions were going on a couple of weeks ago, but I thought those would take quite a bit more time to resolve the fine points.

A back-room deal, even with the very best of intentions, is still a back-room deal. While many of the philosophies of this particular CC license are along parallel paths to the GFDL in many ways, there still are some substantial goals of the GFDL that are being given up. And I'm still not completely sure what is being gained here by harmonization. That is something I really don't see here, other than they have gone and suddenly dual-licensed Wikimedia content that was previously available only under one type of content license. And dual-licensing that content without really getting input from those who have contributed that content in any major form.

This is not just a tweak of the GFDL to help clean up some of the very real problems of the GFDL, and there are some very real problems that do need to be resolved.

There really isn't too much I can do about this right now anyway, so I'll have to "wait and see" what the political fallout is going to be. There will be some, of that I have no doubt.
Re:Good luck with that.... by grumbel · 2007-12-01 13:16 · Score: 1

### there still are some substantial goals of the GFDL that are being given up.

Which would that be? Wikipedia doesn't make use of invariant sections, cover text and all that other stuff as far as I know and those pieces seem to be the only real difference between CC-by-sa and GFDL.
Re:Good luck with that.... by Teancum · 2007-12-01 14:00 · Score: 1

That's just like saying Jimmy Wales should never have started Wikipedia in the first place because it would attract trolls and vandals.

This is putting words in my mouth that I didn't say here. I did suggest that the WMF is out of touch with their user base, and I still believe that to be the case. I'm not saying that there is any easy way for Florance to get the input that she needs to really be responsive to Wikimedia users, as the numbers are so huge and speak so many languages that I don't know how nearly anybody could really do more than simply try to do your best and hope that you don't piss too many people off. The voting method used to select WMF board members has some interesting biases that would be fun to look at from a political science viewpoint, and it does influence the kind of people who get elected. Again, I'm not saying that they are horrible people, but they do tend to come with a certain set of baggage and viewpoints that would be different if there were other voting methods used.

The problem is that this announcement is a very core issue to all of the Wikimedia projects, and goes as deep as trying to determine the actual copyright status of nearly every edit that has occurred on Wikipedia and the other sister projects. I don't know of any single issue that has come up which would affect each and every Wikimedia user, past, present, and future, to this extent.

In going through all of this, however, I am not hearing what the Free Software Foundation thinks of all this attention. I'm sure that by Monday... Friday at the most... that RMS will offer up some sort of reply to this and tell it from his viewpoint. Perhaps even going so far as telling Jimbo where to shove it (not likely, but that is characteristic of RMS), but more likely trying to diffuse this whole thing and let everybody know that the GFDL is not becoming CC-BY-SA 3.0, as Jimbo seemed to indicate here with this "announcement".

Of the draft version of the GFDL 2.0 (or whatever version they intend to actually give the thing) that I've seen on gnu.org, I haven't seen anything to indicate such a drastic action, so I'm giving more room to RMS to come out and suggest where this all might be headed.

This is a classic Jimbo action, however, where a broad announcement is made that is a major policy announcement, but leaving the details to everybody else to try and figure out how to make this happen. Unfortunately, Jimbo is going up against RMS on this one, and in this regard I'm not sure who will "win" in these kind of P.R. games. RMS is much more of a detail person, and does know how to get his hands dirty on stuff like this... which is also why I think an announcement by RMS is going to be the more important one here.
Re:Good luck with that.... by Headcase88 · 2007-12-01 14:10 · Score: 1

Mike Godwin told me that my contributions may be removed from Wikipedia (all 1400 or so edits[...]) if I object to this new license arrangement. Sounds like they're turning into a bunch of [don't say it Case].

--
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Re:Good luck with that.... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 22:54 · Score: 0

Feel free to ask for your contributions to be removed. Unfortunately, though, you agreed to license them under Wikipedia's license - the GNU FDL, version 1.2 or any later version published by the FSF, without any invariant sections, front-cover text or back-cover text.

Oopsie. Seems like you have no leg to stand on, then, eh? And given that you are apparently totally confused as to what all this actually *means* (here's a hint: the GFDL and the cc-by-sa license already are the same in spirit; the only things that are keeping them from being compatible are technicalities), allow me play the world's saddest song for you on the world's smallest violin...
Re:Good luck with that.... by David+Gerard · 2007-12-02 00:10 · Score: 1

As I asked on the list, and which you didn't answer there - what the hell were you thinking each and every time you clicked to agree with "or later"?

--
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Re:Good luck with that.... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-02 05:23 · Score: 0

> Here is what I (note the change in noun case here)

Um, it changed from nominative to nominative? Or were you perhaps thinking of noun number?
Re:Good luck with that.... by Teancum · 2007-12-02 05:40 · Score: 1
As I asked on the list, and which you didn't answer there - what the hell were you thinking each and every time you clicked to agree with "or later"?
Asking this question multiple times to me here on /. is hardly productive, and is a waste of both your and my time, as well as reasonable readers of /. as well. The spam alone has made me feel I should leave this alone, but I think I might just bite here.
1. Just because you ask the question, I don't need to answer it. You aren't my employer, supervisor, parent, or in any position of authority over me. Expecting me to answer such nearly trollish question really shows some nerve. Especially when the question is posed with nearly offensive language and a condescending tone as this one is.
2. I also thought I answered this question rather completely on the Foundation-l mailing list, and this specific e-mail post that you made was just one of hundreds thrown around, many of which were asking me what I thought of switching to the CC-BY-SA license. I many not have answered explicitly this particular question, but I certainly felt that the copyright to content I added would be honored and not ignored.
3. I also expected that when I saw the "or later version" clause that it would be something that came from the Free Software Foundation, and not Jimbo Wales. I know Jimbo is still a board member of the WMF, but I wasn't aware that he could be speaking formally on behalf of the Free Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation like he did with this "announcement". He isn't the chairman anymore, as I thought Florance got that job.
4. Getting more into who speaks for the FSF, I thought it would be Richard Stallman who would make some sort of announcement regarding a major change in the GFDL. I have been reading some of the proposed changes to the GFDL on gnu.org, and harmonization with any Creative Commons license didn't seem to be anything more than a crackpot background thought. I guess I was mistaken here. I also expected that RMS wouldn't be selling out like it seems he is here. I'm waiting for the "other shoe to drop" here, which will be an official pronouncement about this update to the GFDL by RMS. That hasn't happened yet, and his take on this whole thing is far more important than what Jimbo or Mike Godwin think is going to happen.
5. And since you used the word yourself in the question.....I sure as hell didn't think there would be any possible way for the WMF to "switch licenses" from the GFDL to CC-BY-SA even assuming there was some sort of harmonization that allowed co-mingling of the content licensed under the two philosophies. This "pronouncement" by an official WMF press release and by Jimbo is simply over the top, and something that is going to reverberate for a very long time on Wikimedia projects, and is going to be a loss of trust on the part of a great many toward Florance in particular and perhaps with the whole of the WMF board of trustees. While Mike may be a pretty damn good lawyer, I'm not really sure that what he has proposed here is even legal. I know it won't be if the Free Software Foundation isn't 100% in agreement with Jimbo/Mike that this is something which can be done. I certainly don't see the Free Software Foundation completely giving up on the GFDL and simply declaring that GFDL 2.0 is now CC-BY-SA 3.0. Harmonization is not identity, which is what Mike seems to be spouting off on his replies on Foundation-l right now.
I know Jimbo has a huge ego, but I think the ego of RMS is even bigger. I've had quite a bit of interaction with both of these individuals. I've met RMS personally and even caused RMS to change his mind on a couple of interesting points. I've dealt with Jimbo not only on Foundation-l, but also in the management of some of the project, most notably with Wikibooks. The final word hasn't been spoken here, and it will be RMS who has the final say, not the WMF board of trustees. I awa
Re:Good luck with that.... by Teancum · 2007-12-02 06:01 · Score: 1

How much of the draft version of the GFDL have you read on gnu.org? Any at all?

The draft version of the GFDL that I saw a couple of weeks ago was going off to other directions and introduced some interesting new clauses, and tried to streamline the invariant section portion of the license. It also tried to deal with the mandatory inclusion of the GFDL in smaller works... which I thought was an admirable goal.

It certainly isn't CC-BY-SA.

If you are asking me to do a point by point analysis of both the CC-BY-SA 2.0 and GFDL 1.2, and point at what a harmonized license might be like (since neither one of the merged licenses is "official" yet), well, that is going to take more than a /. post. I might try to do something like that on Meta, if somebody else hasn't beat me to the punch. And besides, I'm running out of steam and my heart really isn't into trying to evangelize any further. If you like the CC-BY-SA license so much, have fun! Use it! I encourage you to do so! Just don't tell me where to shove it and tell me not to use the GFDL because I don't follow your religion that Creative Commons is the most awesome thing in the world.

Let's just say that I like the GFDL, and leave it for that right now. I'm not in the mood to argue the fine points.
Re:Good luck with that.... by FishWithAHammer · 2007-12-02 10:41 · Score: 1

Just don't tell me where to shove it and tell me not to use the GFDL because I don't follow your religion that Creative Commons is the most awesome thing in the world.

Name just one difference between the proposed GFDL version and CC-BY-SA that actually matters in practical usage on Wikipedia. Hell, name just one difference between the current GFDL version and CC-BY-SA that actually matters in practical usage on Wikipedia.

Just one.

--
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."

Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-01 09:01 · Score: 4, Informative

The whole notion of "or any future version" of the license, as is commonly used in GPL and GFDL licenses, has always worried me. IANAL, but from a legal standpoint, it seems odd that you can agree in a binding way to something which is yet to be defined.

Plus there's the (seemingly vanishingly small, at present) risk of the FSF being co-opted by some faction which changes the licenses in ways which make them entirely different in spirit to the current versions. That wouldn't mean the content wouldn't still be available under the current versions of the licenses (you can't un-license it once it's out there), but it could mean that forks could be made which were non-free. How do we know that, in say 40 years, the leadership of the FSF will be as principled and uncorruptible as the current leadership?

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News

Re:Modifying licenses by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 09:18 · Score: 1, Informative

You can bind yourself to something yet to be decided, but its [legally] implicit that the future decision would be in the same spirit. Thus, if some nefarious entity overtook the FSF they could only go so far. Maybe too far, but its certainly not open ended.
Re:Modifying licenses by rhizome · 2007-12-01 09:19 · Score: 1

That wouldn't mean the content wouldn't still be available under the current versions of the licenses (you can't un-license it once it's out there), but it could mean that forks could be made which were non-free.

How exactly do you propose that something licensed under GPL v2 (or v3) could be forked to non-free, even under a future version of a license developed by an evil future-FSF? The politics of the FSF do not factor into the license chosen by a particular author.

--
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Re:Modifying licenses by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2007-12-01 09:21 · Score: 1

I thought the GPL allows you to chose the license that you like, if a future version somehow gets a reprehensible modification, you can still chose an older license, assuming that that program version was distributed with an older license.
Re:Modifying licenses by keithpreston · 2007-12-01 09:30 · Score: 5, Informative

With my small army of rebels I take over the FSF and I create GPL v4 which is the equivalent of a public domain license. I fork all projects that are GPL v2 or any later version. I change the license of my forks to be GPLv4 because it still is in the scope of the original license (because of the later version clause). Now I use all my code for free! Yeah!
Re:Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-01 09:34 · Score: 4, Informative

How exactly do you propose that something licensed under GPL v2 (or v3) could be forked to non-free, even under a future version of a license developed by an evil future-FSF? The politics of the FSF do not factor into the license chosen by a particular author.

If you include the "or any future version" clause, the politics of the FSF categorically do affect the licensing of your software, because it is the who FSF define the future versions of the license. Say I release SuperWidgetApp under GPL v2 with the "any future version" clause. Also say that down the line, bad people take over the FSF and make GPL v27, which has no requirement to release the source code. BadCorporation could then take the source to SuperWidgetApp, invoke the "any future version" clause and apply GPL v27; they can then make trivial changes, release it as HyperWidgetApp and not release the source (because under GPL v27, they don't have to). The GPL v2 - v26 versions would still be Free, but the modified version would not be.

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-01 09:37 · Score: 1

You don't know it. A good strategy might be to limit your investment in such a way that you feel it pays off in a much shorter time window. That way, you get to feel good(or whatever it was you were sharing for), and only have to deal with a small amount of future risk.

Of course, you probably take on more risk every time you get in a car or cross a street, but who am I to tell you what to worry about.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Modifying licenses by Leebert · 2007-12-01 09:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

How do we know that, in say 40 years, the leadership of the FSF will be as principled and uncorruptible as the current leadership?

Oh come now, it's not like that has ever happened before.
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-01 09:48 · Score: 1

This would abuse your intentions and be highly irritating, but you would need to get even quite a bit more hypothetical before it actually became onerous.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Modifying licenses by astrashe · 2007-12-01 09:49 · Score: 2, Informative

The whole notion of "or any future version" of the license, as is commonly used in GPL and GFDL licenses, has always worried me. IANAL, but from a legal standpoint, it seems odd that you can agree in a binding way to something which is yet to be defined.

I'm not a lawyer, so this is pretty much worthless. But in my experience, most contracts or agreements have stuff that's vague or poorly defined in them, and when conflicts arise or businesses go broke, people fight tooth and nail over them.

For example, when people are forming a partnership for some new venture, they're usually not thinking about what happens if the thing busts out, or there's only enough salary to pay one instead of two, or whatever.

I'm sure lawyers could fight over that clause in the license. I don't know if they'd win. But I'm sure someone could try, and I'd be surprised if the outcome would be easy to predict even though the language in the license is clear. So to me -- and again, I'm not a lawyer, and the people who draft these licenses are a lot smarter than I am, so take this with a grain of salt -- it looks really dumb.

There's a thing that people do sometimes -- they'll have you sign some stupid form, or put up a sign that says, "not responsible for xxx." None of that is sturdy legally -- but they try to convince gullible people that they've lost before they've started.

Maybe that's what this is -- an attempt to sweep as many people along into the next generation of a license, by trying to convince them that they've already agreed to it. I hope that's not what they're doing here. But if they put that language in, and aren't confident that it would stand a challenge, then it kind of would be what they're doing.

And again, obviously, to head off the critics, I don't know what I'm talking about, so take it all with a giant grain of salt.

Lawyers, even the good guys, bring out the cynic in me.
Re:Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-01 10:02 · Score: 1

Parent AC makes an informative point. I've idea if it's correct as IANAL (but I do hope it's correct, as it addresses the fears in my GP), but perhaps those with mod points would like to make it more visible.

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Re:Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-01 10:05 · Score: 1

If someone didn't find the idea of their code being used in non-Free ways onerous surely they'd have chosen a BSD-style license, not the GPL.

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-01 10:27 · Score: 1

Poppycock. The GPL is a statement of intent. As a practical matter, it affords some protections and brings to bear a fairly motivated community, but it doesn't make any guarantees about how code gets used. A motivated thief can get a long way without raising any alarms, and the license is not well tested legally. The risk of some 'vile conspiracy' against the FSF is much smaller than risk of quiet misuse or legal precedent.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Modifying licenses by Purple+Screws · 2007-12-01 10:33 · Score: 1

Something not often mentioned in these discussions is that the FSF recommends that you put in the "or any future version" clause. The Creative Commons licenses, in contrast, require it -- since version 2.0, they have included this upgradeability in the text of the license. (See section 4b: version 2.0, 2.5, 3.0.)

So any work licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0 or 2.5 is automatically also licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. And 3.0 goes even further, in that a work may be relicensed under any other license that Creative Commons deems to be compatible (although there aren't any of these yet.)
Re:Modifying licenses by Carnildo · 2007-12-01 11:59 · Score: 1

The whole notion of "or any future version" of the license, as is commonly used in GPL and GFDL licenses, has always worried me. IANAL, but from a legal standpoint, it seems odd that you can agree in a binding way to something which is yet to be defined.

I can't find it right now, but IIRC, the FSF has made a legally binding commitment that any future versions of any of its licenses will be substantially in the spirit of current versions. The modified GFDL is no exception to this: the CC-BY-SA license is basically the GFDL without all the awkwardness clauses.

--
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Re:Modifying licenses by Ash-Fox · 2007-12-01 12:44 · Score: 1

A motivated thief can get a long way without raising any alarms
This isn't relevant to the discussion.
and the license is not well tested legally.
I've read quite a few Slashdot articles of certain companies being taken to court over violating the GPL, the GPL winning each time.

I believe the GPL has been tested quite well.

--
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Re:Modifying licenses by novakyu · 2007-12-01 12:48 · Score: 1

Well, when that happens (FSF going evil and changing G*L into something that is not free), then you simply change the license clause for all the future versions---into GPL v26 only.

As for the previous versions that were already released under GPL v26 or later, well, those are obsolete versions, right? If your software is somehow not being maintained anymore, then I think rightfully, it ought to belong in public domain, with no one able to claim ownership over it (after all, not being maintained means no one's claiming responsibility of any sort for it).

As long as your proprietary competitor is forced to use the obsolete versions of your software (before FSF hypothetically went evil), I believe enough in the goodness of free software that you will be able to compete with that proprietary fork.

Until that hypothetical worst case scenario happens, "or any later version" clause does far more good than harm---after all, without that clause, anything with more than a handful of authors will never be able to migrate to future, hopefully improved versions of GPL no matter how much the people working on the project currently want to (e.g. because some old original author, who has no stake in the project anymore, just wants to be stubborn).
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-01 12:57 · Score: 1

Did you mistake my metaphor? I meant that an individual motivated to use GPL code without respecting the license(a thief) can do so, and if they go about it correctly, they are extremely unlikely to be found out('without raising any alarms'). This should be a much bigger concern for anyone who is concerned with how code they are considering releasing under the GPL will be used than the future status of the FSF(because the FSF is carefully managed by people that at least offer every appearance of being borderline fanatical in protecting the ideals that they espouse).

And yes, the legal future for the GPL does look pretty good, but it's the kind of thing where 1 case can go the wrong way and end up unraveling all sorts of things. It isn't rock solid.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Modifying licenses by bug1 · 2007-12-01 13:23 · Score: 1

"Now I use all my code for free! Yeah!"

You can already use all YOUR code for free, if its your code you can do what you want with it. You can USE other peoples GPL code for free as well, the GPL doesnt restrict usage. You can even modify it for free already, but you can only distribute the resulting work as a service (ASP loophole).

Did you mean "Now I modify other peoples code, not share the modifications and distribute the resulting work on my own terms! Yeah!", well yea, but why would you, you would have still have to compete with GPL'ed version and you would loose all the benefits of collaboration.

The FSF has been around for a long time, they share passionate and ideological belief that represents hundreds of thousands of developers and tens of millions of users, the value of the code would be; a lot. If power was going to corrupt them i expect it would have done so already. I would suggest you and your "small army of rebels" would probably have more chance of taking over microsoft and freeing their code...
Re:Modifying licenses by blind+biker · 2007-12-01 13:54 · Score: 1

The "small army of rebels" step is a bit challenging, but otherwise this plan could work. The question is, is out there any GPL code that a company would be so interested in having a closed source version of it, to go to all that trouble?

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Re:Modifying licenses by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 15:10 · Score: 0

> If you include the "or any future version" clause, the politics of the FSF categorically do affect the licensing of your software, because it is the who FSF define the future versions of the license. Say I release SuperWidgetApp under GPL v2 with the "any future version" clause. Also say that down the line, bad people take over the FSF and make GPL v27, which has no requirement to release the source code.

Very true. Thankfully, the worst they can do is BSDize it (use it without contributing back) because the license to accept is the licensee's choice. I.E. if it's available under GPLv2 or later, I as a licensee can choose to abide by anything from 2-26 if v27 sucks.

> BadCorporation could then take the source to SuperWidgetApp, invoke the "any future version" clause and apply GPL v27; they can then make trivial changes, release it as HyperWidgetApp and not release the source (because under GPL v27, they don't have to). The GPL v2 - v26 versions would still be Free, but the modified version would not be.

But this is why you can (and probably should) designate a proxy you trust who approves of the future GPL versions. I.E. your "or later" clause can be "any later version of the GPL approved by Mr. X. A posting by this person to foobar.com shall signify our approval of that later version" or something like that. You can even designate your own process for choosing successors to Mr. X (in case he's run over by a bus or whatever).
Re:Modifying licenses by rhizome · 2007-12-01 16:51 · Score: 1

Also say that down the line, bad people take over the FSF and make GPL v27, which has no requirement to release the source code.

This is preposterous. Got another example?

--
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Re:Modifying licenses by Pharmboy · 2007-12-02 01:42 · Score: 1

IANAL, but from a legal standpoint, it seems odd that you can agree in a binding way to something which is yet to be defined.

Ask anyone who has visited a military recruiter.

Or applied for a variable rate mortgage.

Or gotten married. (you just THOUGHT the terms were defined beforehand...)

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Modifying licenses by ZorbaTHut · 2007-12-02 08:51 · Score: 1

Because I can add a few small features to my version, close the source, rename it, strip all references to the GPL or to free software, and sell it packaged in stores for $50 each.

--
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Re:Modifying licenses by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · 2007-12-02 09:03 · Score: 1

There's a thing that people do sometimes -- they'll have you sign some stupid form, or put up a sign that says, "not responsible for xxx." None of that is sturdy legally -- but they try to convince gullible people that they've lost before they've started.

It has been said those "not responsible for broken windshields" signs (on vehicles where rocks are prone to fall off of) don't work to remove legal liability, but they do work in getting people to believe it and thus stay far away - if they stay far away, they don't get hit by the rocks, thus no damage and no lawsuit.

Sometimes just being believed is enough.

--
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Re:Modifying licenses by bug1 · 2007-12-02 10:47 · Score: 1

So then someone adds those same few small features to the open source version and then nobody buys your crappy software.
Re:Modifying licenses by keithpreston · 2007-12-03 04:11 · Score: 1

I think there is a lot of GPL code out there. The biggest thing is that the GPL is viral. If I want to use GPL code, I must release my code. With the preceding plan, I can use GPLv2 or later code without releasing my own code linked against it. That is a big deal.
Re:Modifying licenses by blind+biker · 2007-12-03 04:35 · Score: 1

Good point.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Re:Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-03 06:11 · Score: 1

Your whole argument seems to be "something else is more important, so you're wrong". That just doesn't make any sense.

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-03 06:26 · Score: 1

No, my whole argument is "something else is much more important, so worrying about it is silly".

Pedantic concern over all future possibilities might seem attractive, but it simply isn't(to me anyway), practical. If that doesn't make sense, I'm happy to accept that we disagree.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Modifying licenses by mollymoo · 2007-12-03 07:50 · Score: 1

I certainly don't lose any sleep over the risk of the FSF "going bad", it gets an appropriate level of concern - not much, not often. I never said it was a huge threat, but to suggest it deserves zero concern or that even discussing the possibility is silly is, to my mind, silly. Taking part in a discussion just to say that the discussion is pointless seems an even greater waste of time :)

--
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Re:Modifying licenses by maxume · 2007-12-03 11:50 · Score: 1

I guess you could say that I am operating under the foolish pretense that I might save other people some time.

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.

Please clarify... by bogaboga · 2007-12-01 09:02 · Score: 1

'This is the party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia'.

I guess the question that arises is..."Liberation from who?"

Re:Please clarify... by LS · 2007-12-01 09:09 · Score: 1

come on man, it's simple: a more restrictive license

--
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Re:Please clarify... by Aluvus · 2007-12-01 09:39 · Score: 1

The Free Software Foundation.

--
Never mistake "can" for "should".
Re:Please clarify... by NJVil · 2007-12-01 10:18 · Score: 1

If only it were the liberation from the handful of oppressive, hamhanded, hopelessly-biased, or otherwise dictatorial editors, it might be a reason to celebrate. Still, I suppose it's good enough news, but I won't be out celebrating it.
Re:Please clarify... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 12:25 · Score: 0

That sentence made me cringe. Wikipedia was already "liberated", and I don't think this makes it any more so.
Re:Please clarify... by Draek · 2007-12-01 13:13 · Score: 1

I guess the question that arises is..."Liberation from who?"
the bureocracy of the GFDL.

--
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.

"compatible" with cc, not "switching to" by gnosygnus · 2007-12-01 09:06 · Score: 4, Informative

the op is no longer correct. the article has been updated to say that wikipedia will be cc-compatible, not that it will switch to it. to quote:

Contrary to the old title of this post (thanks to Larry for the clarification) Wikipedia is not switching to CC. It actually made a deal allowing the community to relicense the content of the wikis under a BY-SA license. So it's now up to the Wikipedians to choose whether they do or not.

this is a bit of legal-hair-splitting (standard ianal disclaimer), but it does mean that there there shouldn't be any legal issues with converting prior content.

also it seems that the cc by-sa license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ is basically equivalent to the gfdl. it is not "public-domain"ing the content, nor is it "bsd"ing the content. it just seems to make it a less-software-centric license. (anyone else, please feel free to correct.)

Re:"compatible" with cc, not "switching to" by gnosygnus · 2007-12-01 09:10 · Score: 1

okay. reread the op and somehow missed the word "compatible". oops.

Correction by Goobergunch · 2007-12-01 09:12 · Score: 1

Correction: Apparently there is a CC-by-sa 3.0 template as well that I didn't see when I wrote that post. The current Wikipedia multilicensing policy is available at Wikipedia:Multilicensing.

Yes they did. by pavon · 2007-12-01 09:17 · Score: 3, Informative

When your posted your stuff, they asked you if it was alright to license your contribution under the GNU FDL, and you agreed. The GFDL allows users to choose either the existing version of the GFDL or any future version, which they pointed out at the time. Now that the FSF has modified the GFDL, users (including wikipedia) can choose to use it for you contributions if they wish.

Re:Yes they did. by logixoul · 2007-12-01 19:21 · Score: 1

That's not entirely correct. GFDL doesn't contain an "or later" clause. Wikipedia's copyright statement does, though.

Somewhere, someone just busted... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 09:23 · Score: 0

...a nut.

The somewhere is Disneyland/world.
The someone is Cory Doctorow.
And yes, he still has that haircut.

Literate programming by tepples · 2007-12-01 09:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Doesn't small snippets fall under fair use? Small snippets are not always the issue. One of the TeX manuals contains the entire source code to TeX. In fact, it is the source code: the WEB software extracts the equivalent of HTML <code> elements, pastes them together, passes the result to the Pascal compiler, and passes the remainder of the document to TeX.

Re:Literate programming by Haeleth · 2007-12-02 05:32 · Score: 1

Small snippets are not always the issue. One of the TeX manuals contains the entire source code to TeX.
Indeed, but literate programming is a rather different issue: with a literate program, the code and documentation are normally written at the same time in the same place by the same people, so it's not a case of one person including another person's code in their own work.

If you wanted to take someone else's program and turn it into a literate program like TeX, or to take someone else's document and add a code implementation to it, then naturally you'd have to respect the existing license on the other person's work. Naturally you couldn't take a GPL program, add in your own CC-licensed comments, and distribute the whole thing under your CC license. (But you could, I believe, add your own comments and distribute the whole thing under the GPL with an additional note granting users permission to extract your comments and use them under the terms of a CC license.)

"Free as in whatever RMS feels like" by moosesocks · 2007-12-01 09:26 · Score: 0, Troll

RMS has always worried me. He's a bit too much of an idealist, and things like the "future license" clause make the GPL extremely vulnerable in the future.

I don't know if I'd call the FSF's current leadership "principled and uncorruptible" as much as I'd call it stubborn and headstrong, with RMS being one of the most unjustifiably arrogant public figures of the moment. Don't get me wrong, the FSF has done some absolutely fantastic work, to which much credit is owed to RMS. However, something about their ideology just never sat right with me.

Since the inevitable "RMS is a communist" comparison will come up, I should point out that Lenin was a pretty reasonable guy, who gave himself far too much power, which let his successors (ie. Stalin) piss all over what he built.

Free software, and freedom of information are both fantastically good things. However, the FSF's approach to it feels somewhat impractical, and likely to blow up in the future. Perhaps you could make the analogy GFDL is to Creative Commons as Communism is to Socialism. One is a great idea in theory but is completely impractical in reality, whereas the other one makes a few small concessions in order to make it practical.

--
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose

Re:"Free as in whatever RMS feels like" by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 09:51 · Score: 0

with RMS being one of the most unjustifiably arrogant public figures of the moment.
Unjustifiably arrogant. Not only is RMS one of the least self-aggrandizing and self-important people that I've met, he's also one of the few people who has a good reason TO BE ARROGANT.
His achievements are remarkable.

Re:They can't by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 09:33 · Score: 0

That's also why a helluvalot of people are going to see this as a bait & switch. This will draw attention to the similar clause in the GPL, which practically puts every GPL user at the mercy of the FSF. It remains to be seen if this is indeed legal or if a clause which allows a third party to change the licensing terms into just about anything is void. If someone has invested enough in GPL or GFDL works, we might see this resolved in court.

The incompatibility starts here by tepples · 2007-12-01 09:38 · Score: 2, Informative

Disclaimer: This comment contains no legal advice.

What are the differences between Creative Commons and their current GFDL? For one thing, both major GNU licenses (GNU General Public License and GNU Free Documentation License) require each downstream user to include attribution to each author in the copyright notice. The six core Creative Commons licenses ordinarily require this, but they also allow each an author to change his mind and forbid downstream users from crediting the author in future copies:

If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any credit as required by Section 4(b), as requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any credit as required by Section 4(b), as requested. Revoking credit would appear to interfere with the ability to present an "appropriate copyright notice" under the GPL or the "section Entitled History" under the GFDL. See also Wikisource.

Re:The incompatibility starts here by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 10:40 · Score: 3, Funny

Disclaimer: This comment contains no legal advice.

Whew! Congrats. You sure dodged a bevy of lawsuits there. I myself was going to sue you for a pathetic post on this pathetic website, but now I cannot.
Re:The incompatibility starts here by VGPowerlord · 2007-12-01 12:06 · Score: 1

I don't know about the grandparent, but the last time I posted a legal interpretation (based on reading relevant documents) and forgot to say I was not a lawyer, the first and only reply was about whether or not it was legal advice.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

--
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011

About time by teslatug · 2007-12-01 09:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

As a Wikipedia, this is great news. The GFDL is too cumbersome. They need to do it right though. They need to freeze Wikipedia, make a dump, make that dump permanently available under the GFDL, and then open up Wikipedia with the new license. Legally they probably don't have to, but this should help others who want to fork based on the license change.

GPL by proxy by tepples · 2007-12-01 09:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Plus there's the (seemingly vanishingly small, at present) risk of the FSF being co-opted by some faction which changes the licenses in ways which make them entirely different in spirit to the current versions.

Free Software Foundation is a charity. I don't think a 501(c)(3) organization can be the target of a typical hostile takeover, unlike a publicly traded corporation. What kind of co-opting do you envision?

Besides, I could see GFDL 1.3 adopting a "proxy" provision similar to that of GPLv3 and LGPLv3:

If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program.

Re:GPL by proxy by samkass · 2007-12-01 10:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

The FSF has *already* co-opted the GPL to change its fundamental meaning when they went from GPLv2 to GPLv3. GPLv2 is a license that guarantees the availability of all code put under it as well as code that is in any way closely attached to it. That's it. Even TiVo has to make their code available, so if you want to download it and make your own DVR out of it for personal use, have fun! GPLv3 attempts to dictate what hardware manufacturers have to do to allow code to be run, what intellectual property actions need to be taken, etc. It is as much about the surrounding infrastructure as it is about the code. And that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not in the same spirit as the GPLv2.

So now anyone who was stupid enough to put "or later" in their GPLv2 code has lost all control over its licensing and given the FSF ultimate power. And I think most people who have been around the block enough to have any degree of wisdom would have a problem with that.

--
E pluribus unum
Re:GPL by proxy by AuMatar · 2007-12-01 10:42 · Score: 3, Informative

NO, its absolutely in the same spirit as the GPLv2. The GPL's purpose is to foster user freedom- the user is free to do what he wants with his software, including alter it, redistribute it, etc. GPL3 removes some things people were using to circumvent the GPL- patents and hardware lockouts. The spirit of the GPL is better served by GPL3 than GPL2.

--
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Re:GPL by proxy by TheRaven64 · 2007-12-01 14:58 · Score: 1

Mod parent up. The GPL has always been about preserving the FSF's Four Freedoms. The huge pile of legalese in GPLv2 tries to do this. The even more huge pile in v3 tries a bit harder, with the experience gained from people finding holes in v2. If you disagree with the intent GPLv3 then you disagree with the intent of v2 as well, although you may coincidentally disagree with the implementation of v2.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:GPL by proxy by Brandybuck · 2007-12-01 16:39 · Score: 1

Frankly, the huge steaming piles of legalese makes me suspect that the intent of the GPL is to be huge steaming pile of legalese. Nothing more, nothing less. The "Free Software" part is just an excuse to pile on more steaming clauses.

--
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Re:GPL by proxy by TheRaven64 · 2007-12-02 02:07 · Score: 1

For my own code, I avoid any license that is longer than my attention span. Typically this means 3-clause BSD, but recently I'm starting to tend towards MIT...

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:GPL by proxy by stephanruby · 2007-12-03 00:18 · Score: 1

Free Software Foundation is a charity. I don't think a 501(c)(3) organization can be the target of a typical hostile takeover, unlike a publicly traded corporation. What kind of co-opting do you envision?

It's called stacking the deck. If you can control the composition of its board of directors and/or the composition of its active voting members, you can takeover a non-profit organization.

This happens more often than you think. Take a look at the right-wing anti-immigrant bloggers that tried to takeover greenpeace. Take a look at the redistricting that happened in Texas. Take a look at what happened to KPFA and its parent foundation (its original membership got it back, but after a costly legal battle). And take a look at the technical committees for open standards that have been taken over by both Microsoft and anti-Microsoft zealouts.

If your requirements for active membership is so low, that almost anyone can join and vote -- it makes stacking the deck with your friends that much easier. Also if all the voting power is concentrated near the top of an organization, and if no one knows what's going on except for a few key board of directors -- that's also a risk.
Re:GPL by proxy by Pharmboy · 2007-12-03 01:27 · Score: 1

I don't code much, but I kinda like the two word Public Domain license (Totally Free). Not many lawsuits stemming from that one either.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:GPL by proxy by samkass · 2007-12-03 17:46 · Score: 1

If you disagree with the intent GPLv3 then you disagree with the intent of v2 as well, although you may coincidentally disagree with the implementation of v2.

That's revisionist history. GPLv2 has always, and continues to protect the four freedoms completely with regards to the code. As I mentioned, even TiVo is forced to allow everyone to use, study, redistribute and modify all the source code.

The GPLv3 is more like DRM, though. It sets requirements on how other people are forced to run your code in binary form after it's been modified, distributed and installed. Should the hardware that TiVo makes be forced to be able to run your code? You can go build your own hardware and use, study, redistribute, and modify all the source code involved, so the four freedoms are still maintained without any of the new restrictions.

Basically, the FSF and their supporters are attempting to spin GPLv3 as a "refinement" of something that retroactively fulfills what they were "thinking all along". It's not that. GPLv3 is a re-thinking of the definition of FSF and applying it to new areas. It adds new restrictions and makes it more difficult to work with, causing a huge amount of harm to the free and open source communities.

You, of course, will disagree with me, but that's my point. Agree or disagree, all the unfortunate folks who added "or later" are along for the ride involuntarily. If you add "or later", you're saying that you will agree to be bound by whatever FSF decides to change in the future forever, and give up all your own rights. Not recommended.

--
E pluribus unum

Wikipedia party by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 09:57 · Score: 0

I wish I could've attended the Wikipedia party. Sounds wild.

Re:Wikipedia party by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 10:04 · Score: 0

I was there, it was a karaoke night and everybody was really having a good time. we even got jimbo to sing a song!!!
Re:Wikipedia party by greenreaper · 2007-12-01 10:16 · Score: 1

Jimbo is a party animal, that's for sure. The reputation of Wikipedians as boring people is undeserved.

Scraper Site by sh3l1 · 2007-12-01 10:15 · Score: 1

Wait, you mean all of those scraper sites will become legal? Aiding the development of even more scraper sites? Sweet!

--
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!

Re:They can't by AxelBoldt · 2007-12-01 10:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

That's also why a helluvalot of people are going to see this as a bait & switch.

I doubt that very much. CC-BY-SA and GFDL are identical in spirit and intent; GFDL just has lots of clauses that are designed for software documentation and very awkward for a wiki. I don't believe that any good-faith Wikipedia contributor who has read and understood both licenses will reject CC-BY-SA in favor of GFDL.

However, I also don't doubt that many disgruntled former Wikipedia contributors will claim that they disagree with this license change, just to troll and cause trouble. Since they have no legal standing, they can be safely ignored.

I'm beginning to wonder by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 10:45 · Score: 0

if the open source content licensing movement (which I heartily support) is not becoming as complex and cumbersome as the mess it was supposed to replace. It's looking more and more like there will be new $800 per hour opportunities opening up for open source IP attorneys, any day now.

Great news for open educational resources! by SteveFoerster · 2007-12-01 11:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm on the Advisory Board of WikiEducator, a project sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning and other international development agencies to build open educational resources primarily for the developing world. We use CC-BY-SA, and this news is phenomenal for us because it means that all of Wikipedia's content, which has up to now been licensed in a way that's philosophically identical but legally incompatible, is now available for us to use.

There's no reason that content should be in separate BY-SA and GFDL silos. It's critically important to be able to remix it together.

--
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org

Re:Great news for open educational resources! by Web+Goddess · 2007-12-02 17:30 · Score: 1

Do you (you people) realize you are speaking in the
incomprehensible jargon of acronyms? Just saying.

His achievements are remarkable by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 11:48 · Score: 0

His achievements are remarkable.
Just because RMS is the Goatse.cx guy?

Being the Goatse.cx guy is the only way RMS can be as big of an asshole as he is.

Not strange. Prose != source by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 11:59 · Score: 1, Informative

In prose, any derived work is also prose, so you would retain the Four Freedoms just by being granted the same license. In source, a derived work could be binary in nature, possibly depriving you of one or more of the Four Freedoms. Thus the need for two (potentially incompatible) licenses.

Big deal by nagora · 2007-12-01 11:59 · Score: 1

So now the people at the bus stop say that anyone can repeat their ramblings if they want. Whoo Hoo.

TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Re:RMS. by HeroreV · 2007-12-01 12:22 · Score: 1

RMS might be a bit of a crazy idealist, but he's done a lot of good for the world, and he should be appreciated for what he's done. He really really cares a lot about digital freedom. If RMS says something is okay, (e.g. selling GPLed software) then I feel confident that it probably really is okay. RMS wouldn't ever approve of something that goes against libre software. His unwillingness to compromise may be frustrating sometimes, but he's definitely a guy you can trust.

Source code for images and audio by tepples · 2007-12-01 13:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

In prose, any derived work is also prose, so you would retain the Four Freedoms just by being granted the same license. "Source code" means the preferred format for editing a work. Machine-readable text without DRM is pretty much the only format I can think of where "source code" is the document itself. The "source code" for a graphic work in PNG format might be a layered file or an SVG file. The "source code" for a sound recording in Vorbis format might be the original multitrack project.

Re:They can't by Teancum · 2007-12-01 13:34 · Score: 1

I don't believe that any good-faith Wikipedia contributor who has read and understood both licenses will reject CC-BY-SA in favor of GFDL.

I am a Wikipedia contributor (you can decide for yourself if I edit in good faith) and have a fairly substantial body of contributions. There are many with more edits than I have, but I'm not exactly a nobody either.

And I do reject the CC-BY-SA in favor of the GFDL.

It isn't anything personal against the Creative Commons folks, and I think there is some good work done by good people using the CC-BY-SA license. But I think there are some strengths in the GFDL that might be ignored as well if there is going to be true harmonization between the two licenses.

More to the point... I contribute to Wikipedia because it is licensed under the terms of the GFDL. And I don't contribute to many wiki projects that use the CC-BY-SA license in any large degree. I look at it more like trying to decide on your favorite cola drink: Coke or Pepsi. They each have fans and you will find some people who like one and snob those who choose the other. But in the end you get nearly the very same thing.

I have a personal preference, but in the grand scheme of things this is fighting over petty nothings.

If, on the other hand, this makes the CC-BY-SA to be more compatible with the GFDL.... well, I guess I still don't see why this is even necessary. That to me is like trying to make Coke taste more like Pepsi. If you can't tell the difference, it probably isn't really important anyway, but for those who do care it can be a big deal.

Accepting money isn't the problem by ClosedSource · 2007-12-01 13:44 · Score: 1

"NOWHERE in the GPL does it restrict you from accepting money for the software."

It's getting customers who are willing to pay for something that they can get for free that is the problem.

Re:Accepting money isn't the problem by Constantine+XVI · 2007-12-02 03:54 · Score: 1

Simple. Give your paying customers something extra for their money. Like support (people from your company vs a IRC room), extra documentation, or advance releases/direct VCS access (The GPL doesn't require that you release betas)

--
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."

Control freak != idealist by ClosedSource · 2007-12-01 13:52 · Score: 1

"RMS is an idealist, whilst the people behind the CC organization are pragmatists."

Besides, if RMS was so idealistic he wouldn't have allowed you to modify the code for internal use without making the changes public. Just because you're not redistributing the code doesn't mean that the code doesn't want to be "free". This was a pragmatic compromise to lure organizations into using GPL'd code.

Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-01 15:27 · Score: 0

"This is the party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia."

Liberation from who exactly? The authors of its content? Uh,that's us. We wrote it so it was ours to begin with. Not sure what this development means really.

Not yet, anyway.... by david_thornley · 2007-12-01 15:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

As I write this, there is no official new version of the GFDL. It would have to be announced by the FSF, and it isn't. The FSF website says nothing about this, and the Gnu Project website lists the 2002 version as the latest.

This seems fishy in other ways. I could say the FSF was diligent in soliciting comments for GPLv3, but "diligent" seems like too soft a word. It would seem odd to change the GFDL with no advance notice whatsoever.

Not to mention, it seems unlikely that this is the third best moment of Lessig's life (after two things involving his wife, which I don't think we need details on). (Yes, I did RTFA, what there was of it. Wanna cancel my /. license?)

This smells like a hoax or prank to me. However, I'm going to look at www.fsf.org and www.gnu.org next week and see if there is anything to this.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Re:They can't by AxelBoldt · 2007-12-01 16:05 · Score: 1

And I do reject the CC-BY-SA in favor of the GFDL.

In what respect do you think GFDL is better than CC-BY-SA, specifically?

I still don't see why this is even necessary.

Two reasons: First, it is very hard to fulfill all the requirements of the GFDL to the letter; not even Wikipedia does it completely, and downstream distributors are a lot worse. The license is simply not written with a wiki in mind. Second, it is impossible to mix GFDL and CC-BY-SA code, even though the two licenses are identical in spirit. The free content world simply shouldn't have to deal with artificial hurdles like that.

sig by Boronx · 2007-12-01 17:32 · Score: 1

"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Implying that "Some people at a bus stop" is a free, community formed collection of books where anyone can transparently edit in a reversible way any part of any book.

Or alternatively that libraries write encyclopedias. That would explain why encyclopedia authors never take the bus.

--
Play Command HQ online

What about the plagiarized material? by I'm+Don+Giovanni · 2007-12-01 17:48 · Score: 1

Lots of wikipedia content is straight copies from other sources. Does Wikipedia have the right to license that material under Creative Commons without the original authors' consent? I know that Wikipedia has been essentially providing that material for free anyway, but it seems strange to "formalize" the giving away of plagiarized content under a particular license that the original author might not agree with.

--
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000

Re:What about the plagiarized material? by SagSaw · 2007-12-01 19:06 · Score: 1

Does Wikipedia have the right to license that material under Creative Commons without the original authors' consent?

Besides for the issue of plagiarism, not all content on Wikipedia is free-as-in-speech. Some content is fair-use or is in the public-domain only in the United States. Common sense says you should verify that the content is actually free-as-in-speech, Before republishing content from Wikipedia.

--
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
Re:What about the plagiarized material? by imthesponge · 2007-12-01 19:20 · Score: 1

Example?

Why not let the users choose their licence? by wikinerd · 2007-12-01 18:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

As a user and contributor (and donor) of Wikipedia I prefer GFDL. Not that I don't like CC. But my first preference is GFDL, and CC is my second preference, that's all. Oh, and I actually dislike the idea of "any future versions" even in GFDL/GPL although I do see practical advantages. However, I also see practical advantages in GFDL-CC compatibility, as now many people will be able to mix Wikipedia content with CC-only content which is a good thing. What would be a BAD thing would be a total CC switch by Wikipedia and the departure from GFDL.

So, I essentially do welcome this compatibility but only marginally... In fact I don't want to see the Wikipedia community getting away from the FSF and the GNU's focus on idealism and purity. I'm an FSF Contributing Member as well, so maybe I'm just a bit biased, but that's just how I feel. Perhaps the future will prove that the GFDL-CC compatibility is more good than bad.

What I don't understand, however, is why it's the Wikimedia or a group of admins who get to choose licences, and not let the users themselves one-by-one do it. Wiki articles emerge after a series of edit wars and vandalisms, and yet they are readable and useful. Meaningfull and useful articles emerge even when large groups of trolls try to bring chaos. What if each wiki article had its own licence decided by the initial contributor? Trolls would surely use this to bring more chaos, and users with no knowledge would also do stupid things, but in the end I believe that useful articles would still emerge, and the licence would be the choice of the community as a whole rather than a few people with lots of social capital or prominence in the wiki community.

I believe a wiki must be built by its users rather than by a core admin team... that's the spirit of the wiki. So, why on earth should the admins force users to either accept a predefined licence or not contribute? This idea led me to allow my users on my wiki to choose the licence of their choice for the pages they create. Yeah I know at some point we will have a crazy mix of incompatible licences, but it is up to the users and their collective intelligence to decide how to use the feature of licensing choices. In the end I believe users as a community will make intelligent choices. That's the spirit of the swarm intelligence, after all, which is also the field of my academic research for my Master's... Give users some guidance, some rules of behaviour, apply the minimally possible central administration and let them free to do as they like.

I'd welcome the idea of letting users decide the licence they would like to be implemented in Wikipedia as well. Perhaps this could help more people to understand what licences are, and also see themselves how unreasonable the current copyright laws are, so perhaps more citizens could start demanding their representatives to start thinking about copyright reform or its total eradication... in my opinion copyright could be replaced by laws built on top of moral rights of authors where everyone is allowed to copy anything but only if the original author is prominently cited and credited. The more ordinary citizens get exposed to the silliness of copyright, the more they will demand changes from their governments.

Wikipedia could start doing that right now very easily. It just needs to remove the site-wide GFDL notice or add an "except where otherwise indicated" note after it, and then apply individual copyright notices on each article that is not GFDL. Of course, to maintain the freedom and the spirit of copyleft, Wikipedia and other wikis willing to use this approach could accept only a specific set of licences that meet certain criteria. For example, articles could be allowed to be either under the GFDL, the CC-By-SA, or the Free Art Licence, or any lcience in the spirit of DFSG, etc..

Re:Why not let the users choose their licence? by jpatokal · 2007-12-02 16:18 · Score: 1

What if each wiki article had its own licence decided by the initial contributor?
This would be horribly impractical and seriously impede any work, because every article would essentially become its own little island that can't be merged with any other one.
A simple illustration: I write an article about a company called Foo and license it as GFDL, and you write another about a company called Bar and license it under CC by-sa. Hundreds of others work on the articles over five years and everything is peachy-keen.
Then Foo merges with Bar and renames itself as Foobar. How do you create the Foobar article, when the Foo article can't use anything from Bar (unless they manage to get explicit permission from every user or anon IP who has ever worked on it, which is impossible), and Bar can't use anything from Foo?
Cheers,
-j.

Re:They can't by David+Gerard · 2007-12-02 00:15 · Score: 1

You still haven't answered what your standing is to reject a GFDL whose text is the CC-by-sa. Remember that "or later"?

--
http://rocknerd.co.uk

No one contacted me by CarpetShark · 2007-12-02 00:42 · Score: 1

...considering that every contribution made to Wiki was made under the GFDL, not CC. Are they going to get permission from all of the past contributors to change the license, or are they going to throw it all away and start from scratch? They don't own the content (it was licensed to them under GFDL) so they just can't change the license.

Yep. No one contacted me about it, at least. I'm willing to bet that's the same for virtually everyone else. Even if it wasn't, they'd have a hard job narrowing down every contribution that relicensing hasn't been permitted for.

Can he even do this??? by Chapter80 · 2007-12-02 01:18 · Score: 1

It surprises me that one man can change the license of everyone else's contributions!!

Not that I think this is a bad thing. But my contributions to wikipedia belong to me. And I licensed them to wikimedia foundation under a specific license, which (as far as I can tell) does NOT permit some arbitrary person (Jimbo) free reign to license it to others under whatever license he wants.

Re:Can he even do this??? by MutantEnemy · 2007-12-02 02:04 · Score: 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation

I think it's obvious how this is going to work.

--
Grr! Arg!

We have that for a long time by CaptainZapp · 2007-12-02 03:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

There needs to be an open source license that gives you everything the GPL does, but only to people who paid for the software.

That exists for, literally, decades.

VMS licensees could get the VMS sources for a nominal service fee (which in that days consisted of a hefty chunk of cash). I remember a small box, approx. 6x8x10 cms when I was working for an investment bank in '89. This box contained the VMS source code on microfilm, likely including DECnet stuff and other good shit.

As far as I know there where very few things excluded (LAT comes to mind).

Of course the intention was not to enable customers to write a VMS derivative (good luck on that) and grace the world with it, but basically for troubleshooting and for documentation of some of the more low level parts of your computing environment.

I don't believe that such a deal is completely unique in the enterprise software world. A milder form of it is, for example, source code escrow.

--
ich bin der musikant

mit taschenrechner in der hand

kraftwerk

No GPLed abandonware? by patio11 · 2007-12-02 05:52 · Score: 1

90%+ of the projects on Sourceforge over a year old haven't seen a commit in a year. One of them happens to be a competitor of my software business (bingo-cards, feel free to look it up), and for my customers the fact that they theoretically *could* revive the codebase does not get them anywhere near the codebase actually being revived.

--
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.

Re:No GPLed abandonware? by Teancum · 2007-12-02 08:30 · Score: 1

This may be true of what you are saying about Sourceforge. And most of those are useless little apps that are mostly experiments or something worthy of some computer science assignment.... perhaps a senior project but not more.

If, on the other hand, you have an application which is running a mission critical function in your company (and I've seen this far more often than you can image), you can at least hire a professional developer through a contract agency even if you don't have full time programmers and get the software updated or to fix bugs that you've identified after months or even years of using the software.

The business case here for open source software is nearly unmatched, and at least some sort of revert clause to a GPL license (or some other FOSS license) ought to be in every software contract if you are unable to locate the original software devleoper/publisher. Defined as a certified letter or some other legitimate legal means to attempt to locate the publisher and lacking the ability to find them that can be documented in court and make sense to a judge that you've made a strong attempt to work with the publisher.

Re:They can't by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-02 06:13 · Score: 0

You still haven't answered what your standing is to reject a GFDL whose text is the CC-by-sa. Remember that "or later"? His standing to pursue a copyright infringement case* would be his position as copyright holder. I don't know whether he would have good arguments or not, however if he lost then the reason would not be lack of standing (assuming he can show that he is indeed the copyright holder).

*That's my best guess as to what you mean by "standing to reject a GFDL".

Uncorruptable Leadership by killmofasta · 2007-12-02 06:35 · Score: 1

OK. 40 years in the future, can you imagine RMS coming back to the future and straightning this out? Im pretty sure, that the direction is pretty well set. Who knows what the future will bring, and I can only see some intense legal threat really adversly changing the direction, but FSF is pretty well set for a long time.

Pretty much this will never change: "GNU Emacs is free; this means that everyone is free to use it and free to redistribute it on a free basis. GNU Emacs is not in the public domain; it is copyrighted and there are restrictions on its distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything that a good cooperating citizen would want to do." and

"To make sure that everyone has such rights, we have to forbid you to deprive anyone else of these rights."

Im sure in 40 years, barring some increadible stupid legal threat, it will pretty much remain free.

Re:They can't by Teancum · 2007-12-02 08:21 · Score: 1

You still haven't answered what your standing is to reject a GFDL whose text is the CC-by-sa. Remember that "or later"?

I responded before about the "or later clause", but here is why I "have standing" on this issue:

I have 1000+ edits on Wikipedia, and 5000+ edits on Wikibooks. Those contributions are released under the terms of the GFDL, and I intend to enforce that copyright license. That makes me a stakeholder in this issue, and I know that I'm not alone with this attitude. And I'm not the largest stakeholder (by any means) that wants to keep the GFDL so far as it is.

BTW, while Mike and Jimbo say that the GFDL can be simply replaced by the CC-BY-SA, I have deep reservations that this is in fact the case. Certainly the Free Software Foundation hasn't said that this is in fact the next version of the GFDL. In a strict interpretation of things, that isn't even what Jimbo said happened with the GFDL, even though he has all but made the licensing on Wikipedia CC-BY-SA 3.0 with no room to object.

Wikipedia is still licensed under the terms of the GFDL at the moment, and pretending that it isn't anymore is very, very wishful thinking. Any contributions added at the moment under just the CC license will be technically in violation of the terms of the GFDL until the GFDL itself is formally changed, and that announcement comes from the Free Software Foundation.

Re:They can't by Teancum · 2007-12-02 08:44 · Score: 1

It doesn't matter why... just that I do. The rest is legal semantics and squabbling over details that is for a hard core evangelist of the GFDL, which I'm not. I just am stating that I prefer the license, and apparently you don't. So what? But I still have legal standing even if every other Wikipedia editor/contributor insists on the switch. And I know I'm not the only one who prefers the GFDL over CC-BY-SA.

Ye cannae change the laws of Contract.... by Half-pint+HAL · 2007-12-02 09:11 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, but I fail to believe that the "any future version" clause means anything legally. I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't hold up in the UK, as it inequitably allows one single party to change the contract arbitrarily.

Now, this may seem a bit of a straw man, but stick with me. Assuming the clausing is legally valid, Richard Stallman could rewrite the various GPL licenses as follows:

1. This license grants Richard Stallman exclusive, sublicensable rights to the work. Anyone seeking to use this work should obtain a valid license from Mr R. Stallman.

Does that seem absurd to you? It does to me. No court would accept my signature on a contract if I had signed it before the contract had been drafted (eg: contract signed 1st Jan 2001, contract mentions CAN SPAM act, judge knows I hadn't read the contract) and the same must go for code. Now, while I'm willing to accept that US law may allow for such an abberration, the FSF's licenses do not specify US jurisdiction, so any contributer could bring a copyright violation claim in their own contry. Thus, if there is one country in the world that doesn't see this change as valid, the whole system breaks.

Which actually means there's no such thing as a legal Linux distro. Interesting....

HAL.

--
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'

Re:Ye cannae change the laws of Contract.... by cduffy · 2007-12-02 09:22 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, but I fail to believe that the "any future version" clause means anything legally. I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't hold up in the UK, as it inequitably allows one single party to change the contract arbitrarily.
The OSS development community as a whole trusts the FSF to act in a manner consistent with those principals, and it's in that context that folks frequently decide to provide blanket approval to any future version of an FSF license -- I've done so myself, and feel extremely comfortable in doing so. If the FSF were to suddenly act in a way not consistent with its principals, that's when arguments attacking its authority will start to carry weight -- but until then, they're only so much hot air.
Which actually means there's no such thing as a legal Linux distro.
Look up "severability". Even if one clause doesn't hold, the remainder of any contract claiming severability is still enforceable. Also, no judge would issue a finding so blatently against the author's wishes and the public interest as a whole.
Re:Ye cannae change the laws of Contract.... by cduffy · 2007-12-02 15:17 · Score: 1

Now, while I'm willing to accept that US law may allow for such an abberration, the FSF's licenses do not specify US jurisdiction, so any contributer could bring a copyright violation claim in their own contry. Thus, if there is one country in the world that doesn't see this change as valid, the whole system breaks.
Breaks for that country, you mean. To draw a parallel, if Tunisia considers quoting your post in my reply a violation of copyright, you might be able to get a judgement against me there -- but that judgement doesn't make a whit of difference while I'm living and doing business somewhere fair use applies.

Beyond that, see my other reply.
Re:Ye cannae change the laws of Contract.... by Half-pint+HAL · 2007-12-02 17:04 · Score: 1

Breaks for that country, you mean. To draw a parallel, if Tunisia considers quoting your post in my reply a violation of copyright, you might be able to get a judgement against me there -- but that judgement doesn't make a whit of difference while I'm living and doing business somewhere fair use applies.

I'm sorry, that's not a valid comparison. When I joined up, I agreed to the following (from the Ts&Cs)
The Terms and the relationship between each user and SourceForge shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of law provisions and each party shall submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Santa Clara, California .
So wherever I am, wherever I go, it's Santa Clara's laws that apply. However, the various GPLs make no claim on a geographical jurisdiction. The default position is normally that any of the signatories may initiate legal action in their home jurisdiction. Now, should a Tunisia developer object when his code gets shifted to GPL3 and gets a court judgement in Tunisia, it is not just a problem in Tunisia, because in the absence of any noted jurisdiction the contract can be assumed to have been "signed" under Tunisian law!
I suspect the FSF have previously considered this problem but chose to ignore it. What's the alternative? Write US law into the "international" GPL? Unthinkable! Us "foreign" developers wouldn't have stood for that!

HAL.

--
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Re:Ye cannae change the laws of Contract.... by cduffy · 2007-12-02 17:44 · Score: 1

Now, should a Tunisia developer object when his code gets shifted to GPL3 and gets a court judgement in Tunisia, it is not just a problem in Tunisia, because in the absence of any noted jurisdiction the contract can be assumed to have been "signed" under Tunisian law!
I don't see how your example applies any more than mine. To be sure, in one there is an explicit license given whereas in the other (in which you successfully sue me for copying your text in my reply, but in a jurisdiction where there's no ability to collect) there's no license at all -- but in either case, it's a Tunisian court you're operating in, a Tunisian court which issues a judgement, and a Tunisian court whose decision I'm perfectly able to ignore so long as I comply with the laws of the countries where I live and do business. Civil judgements are rarely enforceable across borders -- I've even escaped a contract (for less than the current USD$75,000 minimum for federal jurisdiction) simply by moving between US states -- and a US court is under no obligation to consider precedent set elsewhere. (Further, the Tunisian developer wishing to stop the relicensing of his work in the US is at considerable disadvantage when operating in a US court at any level, even when simply asking that court to enforce a Tunisian court's prior decision; there's the expense of hiring a US lawyer, to start -- that itself will frequently be enough to put a halt to the potential proceedings you propose).

You can't sue in a US court and ask that they follow Tunisian law -- nobody in that court, including the judge, is trained in it! If you sign a contract specifying jurisdiction, it is necessary to bring suit in that locale; that's clearly impractical in cases where both the developer and the user will frequently be outside of US borders. And again, the clause in question is not, in its actual context (where the entity able to make unilateral changes is neither the copyright holder[*] or the licensee but a third-party public-interest nonprofit operating under a clearly known and published set of principals and with an open, accessible and well-published deliberative process) as unconscionable as you make it out to be -- and it's severable, so the rest of the license still operates even if that clause should be struck down in court.

No, I don't see any serious issue here -- and practice bears me out. After all, the GPL is quite widely used, and has been for quite some time, and no case such as you describe has yet to occur.

[*] - Of course, if the FSF is one party, that's a little different... but not very much; the other factors I mentioned still weigh in favor of the license's validity, and towards serious limits on the level of impact that contrary decisions on the part of any smaller countries might have.

Re:They can't by FishWithAHammer · 2007-12-02 10:30 · Score: 1

It doesn't matter why... just that I do. The rest is legal semantics and squabbling over details that is for a hard core evangelist of the GFDL, which I'm not. I just am stating that I prefer the license, and apparently you don't. So what? But I still have legal standing even if every other Wikipedia editor/contributor insists on the switch. And I know I'm not the only one who prefers the GFDL over CC-BY-SA.

You licensed your contributions under GFDL 1.2 or later. Therefore, you do not have legal standing, and Jimbo Wales can tell you to blow a goat.

(And yes, in a discussion it does matter why you prefer it when the two are the same license, save for the fact that you don't understand either of them well enough to have an informed opinion on it. Just stop talking, you'll look less moronic.)

--
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."

Re:They can't by Earle+Martin · 2007-12-02 11:27 · Score: 1

It doesn't matter why... just that I do.

Actually, it does matter, because you've just stated it to an audience of thousands as a facet of your argument. So please elaborate, otherwise you may find little credence given to your comments.

so what? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-02 12:06 · Score: 0

so does this mean if I start a new wikipedia page for a person's bio, a concept, or a product - one that might also contain a link to a commercial site or product - that wikipedia will no longer remove the page/edit in a matter of hours? while thousands of other pages with commercial links or product references still remain? complete crap - wikipedia is over-rated, or perhaps just over-moderated by an elite few.

If BSD were a copyleft, it'd look like this by tepples · 2007-12-02 15:36 · Score: 1

For my own code, I avoid any license that is longer than my attention span. Typically this means 3-clause BSD, but recently I'm starting to tend towards MIT... You might want to take a look at the Sleepycat License. It's a copyleft license for BSD fans.

The GPL is chronically flawed. by Half-pint+HAL · 2007-12-02 23:17 · Score: 1

You can't sue in a US court and ask that they follow Tunisian law -- nobody in that court, including the judge, is trained in it!

Of course not -- that's not what I'm saying. You sue in Tunisia, Tunisia rules the other party in breach of contract and declares the contract void. The US court doesn't need to know Tunisian law, it needs to look at whether the plaintiff's IP is being used by the defendant (it is) and whether there is any other contract, whether implied or explicit, outside of the GPL. (The Terms of Use on Sourceforge may be important here, for example.) The problem with that is that the plaintiff can come back saying that the GPL specifies that you may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License which means that a successful defense on the grounds that Sourceforge specifies US jurisdiction would leave them open to being in breach of the GPL anyway.

I'm sorry, but the GPL is chronically flawed.

HAL.

--
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'

Re:The GPL is chronically flawed. by cduffy · 2007-12-03 01:15 · Score: 1

Of course not -- that's not what I'm saying. You sue in Tunisia, Tunisia rules the other party in breach of contract and declares the contract void.
But no US court is obligated to accept that ruling as valid, so it's only worth anything at all if both the developer and the user are in Tunisia.
Re:The GPL is chronically flawed. by cduffy · 2007-12-03 04:25 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, but the GPL is chronically flawed.
You can say that all you want, but saying doesn't make it so.

The GPL is in extremely wide usage today. Where are the practical instances where users or developers acting in good faith are getting burned?

My mistake by stephanruby · 2007-12-03 01:18 · Score: 1

Correction: Take a look at the right-wing anti-immigrant bloggers that tried to takeover the Sierra Club (not Greenpeace).

What if Government abolish copyright? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-12-03 05:48 · Score: 0

Then your problem still occurs.

How hypothetical are you going to get to get your point valid?

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