[Wikipedia-l] Preserving GFDL requirements when splitting articles

Sun Nov 20 18:41:23 UTC 2005

2005/11/20, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>:

> Whether these licenses may be revoked is a dubious prospect. If someone
> revokes the GFDL that he has granted to Wikipedia what is the effect on
> the downstream user who has himself copied the material based on the
> licensing provisions that he found in Wikipedia, and which were
> perfectly valid at the time? Anything but irrevocable licenses could
> lead to serious absurdities.

It seems their rights remain as long as they keep to the GNU/FDL themselves:

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except

as expressly provided for under this License.  Any other attempt to
copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this License.  However,
parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this
License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.

Without this, I guess revoking the license would have the same effect on
downstream users as putting a copyright violation on Wikipedia would: They
are technically breaking copyright, but may be considered exempt by the
courts for acting in good faith.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels