•Amended FDL will allow Wikipedia to adopt CC license
Ars Technica, MA -44 minutes ago
By Ryan Paul | Published: November 04, 2008 - 08:21AM CT The Free Software Foundation (FSF) released Monday version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation ...
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QUOTE(Newsfeed @ Tue 4th November 2008, 3:14pm) 
•Amended FDL will allow Wikipedia to adopt CC license
Ars Technica, MA -44 minutes ago
By Ryan Paul | Published: November 04, 2008 - 08:21AM CT The Free Software Foundation (FSF) released Monday version 1.3 of the GNU Free Documentation ...
View the article
...or will it?
QUOTE
The relicensing privilege will expire on August 1, 2009, and it is limited to content that was published in a wiki prior to November 1, 2008. The GNU decided to impose this narrow window on relicensing in order to prevent it from being abused. It's clear that the GNU's goal is to provide Wikipedia with an exit route, not to harmonize the licenses or make them compatible in any way.
and
QUOTE
"We also do not want people gaming the system by adding FDLed materials to a wiki, and then using them under CC-BY-SA afterwards. Choosing a deadline that has already passed unambiguously prevents this."
and
QUOTE
It's also worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation has not yet decided conclusively whether it will use this opportunity to actually re-license the content.
It strikes me that as every hour passes, the WMF becomes more deeply mired in licensing conundrums as more articles get edited, and each of those post 1st November edits cannot be transferred under the new licence. Perhaps someone would care to edit each of Mr Awbrey's articles to ensure he gets maximum mileage from this?
Why do the letters WMF and the phrase cock-up always seem to sit so comfortably together?
FSF has updated the GFDL to allow easy migration from a GFDL document to a CC license. This would allow people to use Wikipedia content easier in their own sources or publications.
Also, it will allow Wikipedia to switch to a CC license altogether. What is in question is what about all the users that contributed under the GFDL but didn't sign anything to make their contributions permanently available only under a CC license. I don't think Wikimedia will get what they want to easily switch to CC on all content.
They may have to unban authors in order to get some agreement from them to allow content originally under GFDL to be moved permanently to CC.
Also, it will allow Wikipedia to switch to a CC license altogether. What is in question is what about all the users that contributed under the GFDL but didn't sign anything to make their contributions permanently available only under a CC license. I don't think Wikimedia will get what they want to easily switch to CC on all content.
They may have to unban authors in order to get some agreement from them to allow content originally under GFDL to be moved permanently to CC.
QUOTE(Dzonatas @ Tue 4th November 2008, 6:23pm)
FSF has updated the GFDL to allow easy migration from a GFDL document to a CC license. This would allow people to use Wikipedia content easier in their own sources or publications.
Also, it will allow Wikipedia to switch to a CC license altogether. What is in question is what about all the users that contributed under the GFDL but didn't sign anything to make their contributions permanently available only under a CC license. I don't think Wikimedia will get what they want to easily switch to CC on all content.
They may have to unban authors in order to get some agreement from them to allow content originally under GFDL to be moved permanently to CC.
The trick with GFDL is that you licence for the current and future versions of the licence, so you have already agreed to all future versions of the licence. We now have a temporary version which allows GFDL content to be taken to CC - but it dawns on me that I don't really understand what this has to do with WMF as Wikipedia does not belong to them.
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