GFDL / CC by-sa compatibility

Anthony DiPierro 
>Yes, it's hypothetical.  Of course, I'm not aware of anybody 
>legally using Wikipedia content for commercial purposes 
>either, so hypothetical is basically all we've got.  And yes, 
>it is already true for Wikimedia content.  But it isn't already 
>true for all CC-by-sa content.  

Many people already are: 
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content
Although not all are doing so legally: 
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content#Sites_with_issues

>Bastardising the CC-by-sa license for the sake of Wikimedia 
>doesn't seem like a smart thing for CC to do.

Well that seems to be something they are doing all on their own without much 
pressure from us. IMO it is a smart thing for them to do. Once that is done 
we will ask the GNU people to reciprocate. 

>What is your concern, exactly?  The by-nc, by itself, may 
>not be compatible in spirit to the GFDL, but the GFDL dual 
>licensed with the by-nc seems to be compatible in spirit 
>with Wikipedia.  

Its the 'free and will forever be free' line that the by-nc lacks in spirit. 
Blocking commercial use, even in a dual licensing scheme where commercial 
users have an 'out', isn't in line with that. No need to alienate any of our 
users by giving non-commercial ones special treatment. The by-nc is also not 
a share-alike/copyleft license so derivative works need not be covered by 
that license. Thus the great chain of positive feedback is broken. 

>Others have explained it.  But basically by creating a 
>derivitive work which includes images which are not 
>GFDL, you violate the GFDL. 

Not according to RMS who talked to his legal staff about just this issue IIRC 
(I don't think he did so for the CC by-sa / GFDL issue - at least I hope so 
given his obviously wrong response). An image can be treated as a separate 
medium from the text and thus is not an intimate part of the combined work 
and therefore not subject to any viral license the text is under. This is 
especially true for web-based content since HTML explicitly treats images as 
separate entities (only linking to the image's location in the HTML itself). 
But PDF and PS do embed images so I think that is an open and untested part 
of the law. But then IANAL (I only try to keep on top of legal news).  

>Are you saying because the edit windows contain the 
>entire text?  It would be easy enough to clarify that you 
>are only dual licensing your changes, not the works of 
>others.  I think that's kind of obvious, though. 

No it isn't obvious. Any change to the text creates a derivative work. 
Therefore if you make a derivative work of a GFDL text then that derivative 
work must be under the GFDL and only the GFDL. You can't just add another 
license onto the derivative work without the consent of the copyright 
owner(s) of the original GFDL text. 

>Also, why are you standing by while Wikipedia violates 
>the GFDL on your text?

Because I, and I would venture to guess most Wikipedia contributors, think 
that the GFDL has too many requirements. Therefore we explicitly free 
downstream users of our content from the more onerous requirements of the 
GFDL on our copyright policy page: 
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

>Personally, I don't mind Wikipedia's GFDL violations, 
>because they aren't trying to profit off my text.  But 
>maybe you don't wantto help out non-commercial 
>entities other than Wikipedia?  Is that the problem? 

Any and all GFDL text can be used by non-profits or for-profits - it does not 
discriminate. Downstream users just have to relicense any derivative works 
under the GFDL and follow the other terms of the license. This ensures the 
freedom of the content. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)