[Foundation-l] New wiki creation moratorium

Tue Apr 15 17:45:06 UTC 2008

On Tuesday 15 April 2008 15:27:00 Simetrical wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> >  "require" seems unlikely. What difference is there between a project
> >  created today and one created a year ago from a legal standpoint? Do
> >  you mean to say it's more convenient to wait?
>
> I vaguely recall something I'd heard in the past, either from a draft
> of the FDL 1.3 or a rumor or something.  There was to be a new clause
> that went something like this:
>
> "If the covered work was created principally by public collaboration
> on a website editable by anyone, which was created before the date
> June 25, 2005 [pulling that date out of nowhere], the licensee may
> choose to use the work under the terms of the GNU Wiki License instead
> of this license."

I find this very strange and unnecessary. Unnecessary, because if the GNU Wiki 
License is a version of the GFDL, all works created under GFDL 1.2 or later 
could be licensed by it anyway.

Also, it doesn't give attention to works created principally by a single 
person who later released them under GFDL 1.2 or later, and such works are 
plentiful on Wikipedia.