[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikinews-l] Licensure straw poll

Thu Sep 1 08:30:58 UTC 2005

> The usual Free Software Foundation "loophole" on this issue is the "use 
> this version of the license or later adopted version".  This is more of 
> a cop-out, and something that can cause further legal messes.  It does, 
> however, allow the chance that some time in the future a custom license 
> could be merged with the GFDL in a much better licensing arrangement, 
> provided the GFDL "upgrade" fixes some of the issues that most Wikinews 
> users are complaining about with that license.  Or fix the problems that 
> may come up when the draft license is issued, from those kinds of things 
> listed above.

We can very well provide such a versioning in the License... but since 
it would be a WNL versioning, we would be able to make it evolve to 
correct problems instead of relying on third parties like CC or the FSF.

> Using a "standard" license means that the defense of using it will have 
> been vetted in legal circles, something that the GPL is currently going 
> through with the infamous SCO Linux case.  Defending the license also 
> gets popular and legal suport (sometimes) from the people who wrote the 
> license.  If we go it alone and write our own license, we don't get that 
> sort of protection and instead put the authors and (if approved by the 
> board) the Foundation board to stand alone with the license.  On the 
> other hand, if it is well written and very clear as well as reasonable, 
> it may get adopted by other groups besides Wikinews.

Well, besides me, there already are many lawyers, law teachers and 
judges helping th e foundation today. They are helping and there is no 
reason they would not defend us.

A license is simply a kind of contract, lawyers write them everyday.

What we need is only a well-written one that would be tailored for what 
we do, that could help us understand the issues at stake, and that would 
help to chose others licenses in the end.