migrating Wikipedia to Creative Commons

This is a draft of a petition I'm planning on putting on 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights   Please let me 
know what you think.

PREAMBLE

In addition to the Wikipedia, I'm a contributor to LinuxQuestions.org's 
wiki. The creators of the LQwiki (as we call it for short) have decided, 
like many other wikis, to release our community's work underneath the 
Creative Commons Attribution - Share-Alike License. However, since the 
Wikipedia's content is released, with very few exceptions, only 
underneath the Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL), we have not been 
able to reuse content from the Wikipedia. This has led to massive 
replication of effort in several general knowledge articles (such as 
Richard M Stallman and a list of common file extensions). As one of the 
contributors pointed out in the talk pages of the LQwiki's RMS article, 
it would be ironic to violate the GFDL which he had a part in while 
creating an article about his contributions to the community. But it is 
even more ironic to be forced to replicate effort given the existence of 
a body of work that was intended to be shared by its creators. Because 
of this situation, I'm petitioning the Wikipedia community to migrate 
towards releasing its collective work underneath both the GFDL and 
Creative Commons licenses.

REASONS SOME WIKIS DON'T JUST USE THE GFDL

Since migrating towards dual liscencing will not be easy, it seems fair 
to list the reasons why some wikis don't just release their work 
underneath the GFDL and be done with it.

* GFDL works cannot be released underneath the Creative Commons license. 
(Can CC works be licensed under the GFDL though?)

* According to the Free Software Foundation, the creators of the GFDL, 
the GFDL is not free in the same sense that the GPL is.

* GFDL works can be released with invariant sections that cannot be 
modified or removed by downstream contributors. This can easily lead to 
bloat, as downstream contributors add invariant sections of their own. 
In addition, GFDL works are required to keep and distribute a change 
log. Under the GFDL, unlike the GPL, downstream contributors cannot 
remove earlier entries in the change log, which means it keeps growing 
instead of being occasionally pruned. Together, this means that a one or 
two page work can come with ten or more pages of irrelevant information. 
The Wikipedia has no invariant sections, but is required to keep a 
change log. This is taken care of internally by the page histories, but 
this would place an intolerable burden on other wikis attempting to use 
Wikipedia content. Also, there is nothing to prevent downstream 
contributors from added invariant sections themselves.

* GPL works cannot be released underneath the GFDL, and GFDL works 
cannot be released under the GPL. This means the source code released 
under the GPL cannot be quoted (except under fair use laws) in GFDL 
works, and GFDL documentation can't be quoted in GPL source code remarks.

* The GFDL has a overly broad anti-DRM restriction. No GFDL work, 
including personal copies, are allowed to be placed in a DRM (Digital 
Rights Management) format, even if a clean copy is distributed with it.

For additional arguments, please visit these links:

http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml

http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html

http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Why_Wikitravel_isn't_GFDL

HOW TO MIGRATE TO DUAL LISCENCING

Migrating toward dual licensing will be complicated by the fact that the 
vast majority of the content of the Wikipedia isn't copyrighted by the 
Wikimedia Foundation itself, but rather the individual contributors. 
These contributors agreed to release their work under the GFDL, but not 
the Creative Commons license. In order for their work to be released 
under the Creative Commons, their permission must be obtained. In order 
to do this I propose:

1. That on D-Day of the migration, the submission message be changed to 
something along these lines: "I agree to release my work under both the 
GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution - Share-Alike licenses."

2. That the Wikimedia Foundation agree to release Wikipedia content that 
it provided underneath the Creative Commons license.

3. That after D-Day, registered users be presented with the following 
message ( or something similar) upon login: "I agree to release my 
previously contributed work underneath the Creative Commons Attribution 
- Share-Alike license. Y/N". If the user click "No", then they should be 
provided with a link in case they change their mind. (Alternatively, the 
message could continue to appear every login until the user agrees, but 
that would be a little too evil.)

While these measures will "liberate" much of the content of the 
Wikipedia, there will still be a residue of "unliberated" content. This 
would include content submitted by anonymous users, registered users who 
have not logged in since D-Day, and registered users who refused 
permission for their work to be released under the Creative Commons. 
Eventually, this content will be replaced by dual-licensed submissions. 
Until then, however, it will also be necessary to:

4. Track the licensing status of articles, and based on that status, 
have one of the following copyright notices:

a) This article is licensed under the GFDL.

b) This article is licensed under the GFDL. In addition, some portions 
of this article are available under the Creative Commons Attribution - 
Share-Alike license.

c) The current version of this article is licensed under both the GFDL, 
and the Creative Commons Attribution - Share-Alike license.

CONCLUSION

Given the complex nature of the proposed migration, I doubt that it will 
be done without much debate and support from the Wikipedia community. If 
you support this proposal, please sign it with four tildes. This wiki 
markup will be interpreted as a link to you user page and a time stamp. 
If you on the whole agree with the proposal, but have some reservations 
about it, please list a link to a page describing your reservations and 
place your signature under the link. Please do the same if you disagree 
with the proposal. Until this proposal is carried out, I encourage you 
to submit work while logged in so that it can be migrated with minimal 
effort.

SIGNATURES

AUTHOR

crazyeddie

THE UNDERSIGNED AGREE WITH THIS PROPOSAL

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THE UNDERSIGNED AGREE WITH THIS PROPOSAL, BUT WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT

(link 1)

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(link 2)

THE UNDERSIGNED DISAGREE WITH THIS PROPOSAL, AND WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT

(link 1)

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(link 2)

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