Re: GFDL / CC by-sa compatibility

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  
>
>>I sure hope this is made optional.  I don't want my free works 
>>altered and made non-free. 
>>    
>>
>
>Both the GFDL and the CC by-sa are free content licenses. But the GFDL with 
>invariant sections is less free than the GFDL without them (and the CC by-sa 
>is freer than even the invariant section-free GFDL text). No Wikimedia 
>project allows invariant sections for this reason. 
>  
>
The GFDL with invariant sections is not free.  In order to make by-sa 
compatible with the GFDL, you would have to allow invariant sections.  
Thus, my free works could be altered and made non-free.

>>They can't possibly be compatible.  A derivitive of something 
>>released under by-sa has to be released under by-sa.  That means 
>>you can't enforce invariant texts or cover texts, you can't require 
>>that "secondary sections" be about a particular subject matter, 
>>you can't force copies to be "transparent," you can't restrict 
>>titles, you can't limit the number of copies which can be 
>>distributed in a particular manner, and you can't require a 
>>"history" section    
>>    
>>
>
>I think RMS was more concerned with compatibility in spirit, not the letter of 
>the law. Jimbo was in fact baffled that RMS would suggest that the current CC 
>by-sa and the current GFDL are compatible in any real world sense. You point 
>out some reasons why this obviously is not so. 
>  
>
What good is compatibility in spirit?  If I can't mix GFDL text with 
by-sa text without opening myself up to a lawsuit, then any 
compatibility is useless.

>However the "or later versions" clause of the GFDL gives the GNU people a way 
>to add explicit compatibility for transferring invariant section-free GFDL 
>text to the CC by-sa. When that would happen all the GFDL-specific 
>requirements would be trimmed and the end user could use the text under just 
>the by-sa.
>
Yes, but that would be equivalent to dual licensing the content under 
the GFDL and by-sa.  I don't see the purpose of that, unless it's to 
trick everyone who said "or later versions" into allowing this dual 
licensing.  If they do that, hey, I'd be happy with it, I think by-sa is 
a much better license anyway (personally I prefer ShareAlike above both 
of them, at least for content like wikipedia where I don't really care 
about the attribution anyway; having to list 10,000 psuedonyms in order 
to redistribute wikipedia seems kind of dumb to me).

>The same would be true in the other direction if the CC people did 
>the same thing but in reverse. The common requirements between the two 
>licenses would be a de-facto bare bones free content license. We could codify 
>that into a Lessor GFDL. 
>  
>
Yes, the CC people could do the same thing in reverse, but once again 
this would be equivalent to someone dual licensing under both licenses.  
I don't see the point.

>One problem with the current CC by-sa is that there is no "or later version" 
>clause in by-sa 1.0. So I don't know how a project like Wikitravel could even 
>upgrade to the new version of the by-sa without having to get the permission 
>of every one of their contributors (past, present and future). 
>  
>
I don't consider that a problem, I consider it a feature.  I don't want 
someone taking my work, making a derivitive, and adding restrictions to 
it.  That's the whole point of "ShareAlike," after all.  If people want 
to allow derivitives under both licenses, then they can license their 
text under both licenses.  There's no need for the licenses to force 
each other into that.