Need a WFDL was Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles

 From: "Bryan Derksen" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles


> At 09:10 PM 11/29/2003 +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> >This would place an unacceptable burden on third parties as they would
> >have to carry along the complete history of every page thtey use (since
> >there is no automated way to determine who is a principal author),

I really do not see the reason not to link to the page history. Why should
some definition of "principal author" be adopted when we do not know
how the courts might interpret that.

> Not currently, but I can't see why an automatic algorithm can't be created
> that does an adequate job. Have it compare diffs and determine what
> percentage of the current article's text was originally typed in by each
> author, for example, and then pick the users with the five biggest scores.
> This would need some tricks to account for special cases, though,
> especially things like rearrangements of existing text that look like
> massive additions/deletions but which aren't really. Could take a lot of
> computer resources, so maybe it could be done only when generating
> "downloadable" archive bundles.

The problem is that just typing in text is not necessarily a "principal
authorship".
I think that the GFDL was not created to treat texts with dozens if not
hundreds
of authors, there should be a WFDL (Wiki Free Documentation License) that
deals with many of the discrepancies between the GFDL and what goes on
in the wiki wiki world.

> Does anyone know if there's an accepted legal definition of "principal
> author" anyway? If not, then would counting the number of characters in
the
> current version of the article that an author contributed be a reasonable
> way of defining it for Wikipedia's purposes?

I think that a reasonable definition of "principal author" could be "the
five
most important contributors to this article on the Wikipedia page of the
same
name". Why try and figure it out, just cite it by reference? Then you do not
have to create a definition.

<..snip..>

> The licence only requires five names attached to the work; that's a single
> line of small text, which can be tucked down at the bottom of the page
> somewhere discreet. It could be a configurable option, even, if people
> don't like the clutter. The whole entire history would not be required
> then; if the page already lists the five main authors when it's displayed
> then you can just copy the entire page wholesale into your derivative
work.

The problem is, we can argue ad infinitum about what a "principal
contributor"
or who the "five main authors" are. Why not just state that they can be
found
at Wikipedia. No one has put forward an argument about this that has not
satisfied me (though this is not a legal opinion, even though IAAL).

Alex756