[WikiEN-l] Re: group work, unattributed work (was: Use of Wikipedia articles at Malaspina.com)

Thu Jul 10 23:02:50 UTC 2003

koyaanis qatsi wrote:
> Not to be a wag, but how can we reconcile anonymous
> contributions of any stripe--including ones that
> aren't logged in--with the FDL?

Those are pseudonyms.  Nothing about the FDL requires authors to give
their 'real names'.  However an author chooses to identify themselves
is good enough.

>  Pick an AOL IP address and try to assign it to one author, without
> AOL's help.  Impossible.

Sure, and lots of people have the same names, too.

The GNU FDL only requires redistributors to pass along at least 5
names of prior contributors, not that the prior contributors be hunted
down and investigated for their 'real' names.

----

I think this is worth stressing.  Suppose someone came up to you
and handed you a bit of paper with an essay on it.  "Hi, my name is
Bob, and you can create derivative works from this paper if you like,
but you have to attribute the original to me.  Bye bye!"

Are you ethically required to research whether or not Bob is his real
name?  Or, since he said he was 'Bob', isn't that sufficient, morally,
ethically, and legally?

I think this is a non-issue, really.

--Jimbo