[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

Tue Oct 21 17:09:26 UTC 2008

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:40 AM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
....
> Absolutely agreed.  My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
> attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
> Entitled History.  Considering moral rights laws and the ethical principles
> behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
> the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply only
> to "publisher of the Document".

I actually based my only-citing-five-authors-per-article tactic on
advice from Eben Moglen, who as I understood it, felt that as long as
our metric was consistent and we linked back to the history on
Wikipedia, citing all the authors of every article in our print
version was not necessary.

In general, I think part of the trouble with the GFDL as it stands is
that very different interpretations are not only possible but likely
among people who have spent a good deal of time thinking about and
studying it. The intention is clear -- provide appropriate attribution
to the people who wrote the thing you're trying to cite -- but the
implementation is entirely murky. Pity the random person who tries to
reuse content and has to figure out the license...
-- phoebe