[Foundation-l] GFDL 1.3 Release

Mon Nov 3 23:07:48 UTC 2008

2008/11/3 Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> 2008/11/3 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>> Not remotely acceptable. We accept duel licensing of images because we
>> already have to carry a significant overhead in terms of juggling
>> copyright conditions due to other causes. You want to add that
>> situation to text? That is not a good idea. Duel licenses are at best
>> a necessary evil. There is no benefit in extending the situation to
>> text. A clean switchover must be the objective.
>
> While I tend to agree with you, the FSF has required us to agree to
> these compromise dual licensing terms before releasing the FDL 1.3.
> This is a separate agreement between the FSF and WMF. We'll proceed to
> a referendum under these terms.

I'm not sure it was wise of the WMF to make that kind of commitment
without consulting the community. Allowing an external body to dictate
procedure on Wikimedia projects is a big deal that I expect a large
portion of the community to be very unhappy with. There may not really
have been an alternative if FSF weren't willing to budge (public
pressure might have helped there - if there were NDAs then the mistake
was in signing them), but the community should still have been
consulted.