GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit [LWN.net]

GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 6, 2008 7:07 UTC (Thu) by jimparis (guest, #38647)
Parent article: GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

> In other words, GFDL-licensed sites like Wikipedia have a special,
> nine-month window in which they can relicense their content to the
> Creative Commons attribution-sharealike license.

I don't get it. You say "in which they can"... but hasn't the relicensing already happened by virtue of the FSF's new wording? I can download all of Wikipedia, put it on my own server, upgrade from GFDL 1.2 to GFDL 1.3 using the "any later version" clause, relicense to CC-BY-SA by this new clause, and viola, all of Wikipedia's content is now CC-BY-SA.

It's still their choice is how to handle future content, but it certainly seems like all existing content has just effectively been relicensed. As long as I do what I said above, within the next 9 months.

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GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 6, 2008 8:09 UTC (Thu) by cworth (subscriber, #27653) [Link] (2 responses)

> I don't get it. You say "in which they can"... but hasn't the
> relicensing already happened by virtue of the FSF's new wording?
> I can download all of Wikipedia, put it on my own server, upgrade
> from GFDL 1.2 to GFDL 1.3 using the "any later version" clause,
> relicense to CC-BY-SA by this new clause, and viola, all of
> Wikipedia's content is now CC-BY-SA.

I think the wording in the exit clause prevents this. Specifically, the wikipedia content in this case would be one of a class of "works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC" and then you would run afoul of not having "incorporated [it] prior to November 1, 2008".

-Carl

GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 6, 2008 8:18 UTC (Thu) by jimparis (guest, #38647) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, tricky. But any site that did copy Wikipedia before Nov 1 could still do it.

GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 6, 2008 17:53 UTC (Thu) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]

Only if they were also wikis, as I'm reading it. That means only forks are eligible, not just mirrors. It's very narrow. Although thankfully not as narrow as it could be -- it could have just flat-out said only the Wikimedia Foundation could relicense its wikis, which would be really unfortunate for forks.

GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 6, 2008 8:19 UTC (Thu) by i3839 (guest, #31386) [Link]

You're not a Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site Operator, are you?
If not, you may not relicense it.