[WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside GFDL source?

Wed May 26 18:12:07 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>The GNU FDL is a complicated mess. The sooner we can be free of it, the better.
>IMO.
>
It's basically impossible to change the license at this point; since
all writers still own the copyrights to their material, every single
one of them would have to be contacted and agree to the change of
license.

The FSF gave itself the freedom to update the GPL on GNU software by
requiring all contributors to assign ownership to the FSF, so that GCC,
GDB, etc have a single owner. (Note that the Linux kernel is not one
of those projects.) Copyright assignment is a huge pain; there's a
cabinet stuffed full of pieces of paper with signatures at the FSF
offices, and clerks that manage it, but it pays off in this kind of
situation.

Stan