[Wikisource-l] Toward compatibility with the GNU FDL: delete all Creative Commons works?

Thu May 11 19:55:02 UTC 2006

  ** Warning: this email has not been checked for accuracy. I am also
  NOT an expert in copyright law.

I would like all Wikisource subdomains to adopt a common copyright
policy, considering which licenses are allowed and disallowed.
Currently it seems that some licenses are valid on some subdomains
but not others.

On en.wikisource, the current copyright policy
  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Copyright
requires all content to be compatible with the GNU Free
Documentation License. However, maybe some other language
subdomains do not have this policy?

I read from the fr.wikisource copyright policy
  http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Respect_du_copyright
that "La plupart des textes de Wikisource sont du domaine public;
quelques uns peuvent être sous GFDL." (My translation: "The majority
of Wikisource texts are public domain; some are under GFDL.")

However, in the multilingual (oldwikisource) policy
  http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Copyright
in section "Using copyrighted non-textual work from others" it allows
any kind of license. Considering that Wikisource should be a "free
library", I believe that non-free licenses should be disallowed.

Meanwhile, I would like to have the current en.wikisource policy
of GFDL-compatibility enforced better.

Understand what this means.

The FSF maintains a list of free software licenses at
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
and while the GNU General Public License (GPL) is a free software
license, some other free software licenses are compatible with the
GPL, but some are not.

Similarily, some free content licenses are compatible with the
GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), but some are not. This
is where the en.wikisource policy could be clarified: it prohibits
noncommercial licenses, but it does not mention free licenses
that allow commercial use but are incompatible with the GFDL.
However, it does require GFDL-compatibility, thus de jure
en.wikisource already prohibits those incompatible free licenses.

>From what I know, the basic test for GFDL-compatibility is this: can
someone combine content under license X and license GFDL and
release the combination under GFDL? If yes, X is GFDL-compatible;
if no, X is not GFDL-compatible.
  This is analogous to how FSF says that GNU GPL compatibility
  "means you can combine a module which was released under that
  license with a GPL-covered module to make one larger program."
  Because GNU GPL is copyleft, that larger program would be
  under GPL.

The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) is an
example; it is a free [1], copyleft license. Now GFDL is also copyleft.
Because of copyleft, if I modify the work I must use the same license
for my modifications. If I combine CC-BY-SA and GFDL work, I must
release the combo under CC-BY-SA and GFDL simultaneously.
However, each license contradicts the others because of technicalities;
for example GFDL grants the right to add an Invariant Section, but
CC-BY-SA prohibits that. So CC-BY-SA is not GFDL-compatible, and
CC-BY-SA IS AGAINST EN.WIKISOURCE POLICY.
  [1] CC licenses are not Debian-free (they fail Debian Free Software
  Guidelines), see http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

The Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) is a more difficult
example. CC-BY is not copyleft. So when I combine CC-BY and
GFDL works, it is okay if GFDL has some extra rules (like copyleft)
that are not in CC-BY. Thus I have read that CC-BY is one-way
compatible with GFDL. For example, Wikinews picked CC-BY:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2005-September/000329.html

states that "The winner is CC-By 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki.
The license is one-way-compatible with the GFDL."

That email seems wrong to me; compare what FSF says on their list
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
about CC-BY license: "Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License:
This is a non-copyleft free license for artistic works and entertainment
works. Please don't use it for software or documentation, since it
is incompatible with the GNU GPL and with the GNU FDL."

Maybe CC-BY 2.0 is incompatible, but CC-BY 2.5 is compatible?
Actually, my own reading of CC-BY 2.5 suggests that CC-BY 2.5
is incompatible. License is at
  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode
and in clause 4a: "If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice
from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove
from the Derivative Work any credit as required by clause 4(b),
as requested." Clause 4b is the attribution requirement.
In short, an author can use clause 4a to change the requirement
from attribution to nonattribution. This would apply for example
to Wikisource translations of CC-BY works.

But the GFDL requires attribution, and has no equivalent to
CC-BY clause 4a. License it at
  http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and in GFDL section 4, modifications are allowed if "you
release the Modified Version under precisely this License".
Its copyleft, and CC-BY clause 4a contradicts the GFDL.
Thus, (on a minor technicality!) the CC-BY is not
GFDL-compatible, and CC-BY IS AGAINST EN.WIKISOURCE
POLICY.

-- [[en:User:Kernigh]]
   http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Kernigh

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