[Foundation-l] GFDL 1.3 Release

Wed Nov 5 16:23:48 UTC 2008

2008/11/5  <psychoslave at culture-libre.org>:
>> 2008/11/4  <psychoslave at culture-libre.org>:
>>> You know, if you say "this work is under free art license"
>>
>> There is no requirement that you say that. The following fulfills the
>> terms of the license
>>
>> "This work is available under the terms of the license that may be
>> found at www.example.com/dfklhg."
>>
>> As long as that URL is active at the moment of distribution that is a
>> legit approach.
>
> Are you sure ? From the license :
> To benefit from the Free Art License, you only need to mention the
> following elements on your work:
> [Name of the author, title, date of the work. When applicable, names of
> authors of the common work and, if possible, where to find the originals].
> Copyleft: This is a free work, you can copy, distribute, and modify it
> under the terms of the Free Art License
> http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/

That is the user guide. While that is how a normal person might do it
that is not how an abusive one would.

>
>>
>>>> "specify to the recipient where to access the originals (either
>>>> initial or subsequent)."
>>>> This is unclear
>>>
>>> Why ?
>>
>> Poor phrasing. I think you mean to say where every previous version of
>> the work can be accessed but it is unclear if you actual means that.
>> Also presents problems if the original has been destroyed.
>
> What else could the license (not me) means ?

The idea of subsequent originals is a little odd in english.

> If the original has been destroyed, well you may just say it has been
> destroyed and can't be accessed anymore, musn't you ?

But there is no way to know if that is allowed under the license.

> Well, IMNAL, if I buy the Joconde, can I burn it ?

Under UK law yes. This happens from time to time with less significant
works. There is an art movement in the US where people by paintings at
garage sales and the like and make changes to them.

>> No it won't. Common law and Napoleonic code systems react very
>> differently to moral rights. Since wikipedia is US based (US law
>> pretty much ignores moral rights) adopting a license that appears to
>> assume the existance of strong moral rights would be a bad move.
>
> I don't know, I didn't red the Berne Convention, I'll do. Did you already
> read it yourself ?

Yes but not significant. Common law and Napoleonic code systems treat
the same set of Berne Convention inspired laws very differently.

> On short term maybe, who knows. But as long as CC will be a source of
> confusion on what free/libre license means, I'm afraid it will hurt the
> community. Maybe I'm wrong, and lets hope I am, but facts tends to tell me
> otherwise.
>
> And the other thing is that if you place wikipedia under any license, this
> license will rise in popularity. CC gained popularity with their non-free
> licenses, do we really want to see wikepedia assimilated in this "free
> like free beer state of mind" movement ?

The lack of popularity of the GFDL suggests otherwise. It is true yes
that with the wikipedia switchover CC licenses will become the
effective standard.

> If CC would drop their non-free licenses and make compatibility efforts, I
> would be very happy with wikipedia switching to a CC license.
>
> Of course, this is just hypothetical consequences, only the futur where it
> is chosen to go this way may say real consequences. Maybe this would lead
> people to use more CC-by-sa and let others CC licenses die. Nevertheless,
> this choice may be done with all possible consequences in mind.
>
> Kind regards,
> Mathieu Stumpf

CC-BY-NC and ND are unlikely to die but I suspect there will over time
be an increased understanding of the differences between free and
semi-free licenses. Dropping wikipedia onto the free side of the line
should help with that.

-- 
geni