[Foundation-l] Re: license evolution

Sat May 21 02:11:59 UTC 2005

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Also it would be very important for wikipedia to provide its own  
> license and to allow it to evolve. As a policy matter, I don't  
> believe it's really safe to leave your legal needs within the hands  
> of others like we did with the GNU/FDL (and it would be the same  
> problem with CC).

I'm not sure that a wholly new license, especially one unique to 
Wikipedia, is such a good idea. In the software world, there are already 
many complaints about the existence of too many "open source" licenses. 
The problem may not be quite as great outside of software, but even 
sorting through just the options available from Creative Commons can be 
a little challenging, and they heard some concerns about license 
proliferation when announcing their new CC-Wiki license (Lessig says 
it's different "brand" rather than a different license).

I think it would be better for us to focus on figuring out how to revise 
the GFDL, including working up draft proposals ourselves as appropriate. 
While it's occasionally suggested that there are ongoing talks with FSF 
and/or CC, perhaps we sometimes expect there's more going on than there 
really is. Jimbo would hardly have the time to be focusing on these 
issues constantly, and it's not his field of expertise (the same is true 
of Richard Stallman, for that matter). Actually generating ideas for 
them to consider might yield more results.

However, I think branching out completely on our own would require too 
great an investment of resources. Achieving absolute independence is an 
appealing sentiment, but the FSF and CC have experience and 
understanding in this area that would be valuable for us to draw upon. 
Working with other organizations on these issues also contributes to 
being a responsible member of the larger free-software/content community.

--Michael Snow