[WikiEN-l] the document vs. everything vs. the text

I've spoken with Jimbo about this exact point back in February, and he responded to me that it "is *not* a claim that _only_ text is available under the terms of the GNU FDL." Furthermore, the GFDL requires that the *entire document* is released under the GFDL, and that's exactly what Wikipedia:Copyrights does. See this edit made by Jimbo after I spoke with him: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Copyrights&diff=24… That said, the use of the words "the Document" intentionally avoids the issue of what the organisation intends to be releasing (and indeed whether or not they are releasing anything or if instead they are merely acting as a common carrier for the documents published by Wikipedians). I'd like to see this spelled out, and now that there's a board of directors a committee could be formed to do so. I can see why the organisation might not want to do so. After all, it's much easier to just adapt your position to whatever is convenient for whatever legal situation you get into. But as a free encyclopedia I think there is a responsibility to give people some *official* explanation as to how they can legally reuse the product. A page freely editable by any admin which uses weasel words like "You may be able to partially fulfill the latter two obligations by..." doesn't really cut it. Something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verbatim_copying gets a little closer. Alternatively, of course, it's perfectly reasonable for the organisation to say that it does not claim any copyright on the encyclopedia at all, that it is a work of the Wikipedians and Wikipedia is merely a service provider. fits in best under the OCILLA protections. But once a print edition is made, someone has to step forward and take the liability as publisher. Anthony