Re: Re: Verbatim copying - link back

On 20 Nov 2003 at 11:07, Andre Engels wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> 
> > 2) A functional link back to the original
> > document, or the full url in a printed copy. NOTE this should always
> > be to where most of the document was created.
> 
> #2 is not something that is required by the 'heavy' GNU/FDL. Rather,
> it
> requires that the material must be made freely available in
> machine-readable form. If someone publishes Wikipedia material
> unchanged, such a link back would be a good way to fulfill this
> required, but if they change it, they will have to put their own
> version on the net, or distribute it with whatever else they are
> distributing.

Note that:
* HTML is a Transparent copy, unless it's been deliberately obfuscated, so people 
publishing on the internet trivially satisfy this condition.
* The requirement to include a machine-readable form does not apply to verbatim 
copying of less than 100 copies.

Therefore, I do not believe that we can rely on the section on a Transparent copy to 
request a link back. In any case, such link backs are unstable due to the deletion or 
movement of content, and people who use such links must take "reasonably prudent 
steps" to ensure that the transparent copy will remain accessible for a year.

However, I note that Axel Boldt has expressed the following opinion on 
[[Wikipedia:verbatim copying]] that:

----
As the GFDL was never intended for wiki articles, things get complicated [with the 
History Subunit].Wikipedia has long declared on its Copyright page that you are 
deemed to be in compliance with the GFDL requirements on the History Subunit if 
you conspicuously link to Wikipedia's version of the article, which in turn has a link to 
the page history. Alternatively, you could try to reconstruct a proper history section 
and store it on your site.
----

This to me seems dubious, but no more dubious than other things we're doing with 
the GFDL, so I'm not opposed to it. What do y'all think?

-Martin "IANAL" Harper