On 10/16/06, gwern branwen <gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Roger, could you expand on this? I'm not following
how it works. I
understand that dual-licensing works for software because companies
may not want to copyleft their work, and because just source code
isn't actually all that useful minus maintenance and support and
documentation and other things that companies like Redhat provide for
money, but how does this apply to regular old content? Is the GFDL as
'viral' as the GPL in regard to modification and incorporation, and is
not being GFDL valuable enough to various parties that the relevant
corporations would still realize their desired sums?
I'm not roger, but...
GFDL, CC-By-SA, and the GPL (as well as many others..) are copyleft licenses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
Copyleft licenses ensure that all decedents of the copylefted work
remain at least as free (but potentially no more free) as the original
copylefted work.
The result is that if someone wants to make a derived work starting
from a copylefted base they may not deny downstream recipients the
same rights which they received.
In the future, please avoid calling the share-alike nature of
copylefted works "viral": Because nothing forces you to make use of
the copylefted work of others the comparison to others, and no
violation to force you to open your own works (rather, a failure to
option in the face of a violation of a copyleft licenses leaves you
open to prosecution for copyright violation), it is inaccurate to use
the derogatory term "viral" to refer to copyleft licenses.
As far as dual licensing, the GFDL and CC-By-SA are not compatible.
There used to be a larger philosophical schism between the two
licenses (for example, in terms of the intensity of DRM protection)
but the new GFDL drafts (Esp the SFDL) substantially reduce the real
incompatibility (by making unfortunate changes, such as leaving the
GFDL with less DRM protection than CC licenses) .. but the gratuitous
incompatibility remains and is not likely to be resolved due to an
increasing disconnect between RMS
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman) and the creative
commons (which happily endorses unfree licenses like CC-By-NC-ND which
inhibit read write culture, along side acceptable free ones like
CC-By-SA-1/2.0).
So long as the GFDL (or really the SFDL) is going to be functionally
equal but gratuitously incompatible with CC-By-SA-2.0, the dual
licensing makes sense....