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

Fri May 12 06:37:47 UTC 2006

On 5/11/06, xkernigh at netscape.net <xkernigh at netscape.net> wrote:

> 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.

Arguably, that clause cannot and does not effectively apply when you
use the option to designate an entity for attribution, as we do with
Wikinews (section 4.b).  When you copy a Wikinews article, you are
required to attribute it to Wikinews itself, rather than to the
individual authors. The option to designate an entity is relatively
new and was introduced specifically for collaborative works like wikis
(a CC-WIKI license was briefly under discussion). I suspect that
section 4.a needs a bit of an overhaul to deal with this.

Erik