letter to RMS - Textbook-l

6 Aug 2003

I drafted this letter to RMS to seek his blessing on a
change to the terms of the GNU FDL which would allow some
sharing between the GNU FDL and other copyleft licenses.
Lets see if we can get a consensus on this so we can send
it out to him.

--Karl

To: "rms" at "stallman" period "org"

Dear Richard,

A quick question. I am writing on behalf of the Wikipedia
and Wikimedia Foundation with a licensing question. The
Wikipedia has grown to be the largest resource of open
content, copylefted material known. As you know, all of its
content is licensed under the terms of the GNU FDL.

Recently, other open content, copyleft licenses have come
into use, most notably some Creative Commons licenses. 

I am interested in a level of intercompatibility between
the GNU FDL and these other copyleft licenses. The goals
are to preserve the copyleft nature of the material while
allowing material to be shared under certain circumstances
and conditions with other projects using these paralell
licenses. 

My interest lies in adding a clause to the terms of the GNU
FDL license that would in some way allow the sharing of
materials exclusively with other copyleft licenses. You of
course would have to be in agreement with all end changes
as well as the process to get there. 

Thank you very much for your attention,
Karl Wick

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