GNU FDL changes

David Gerard dgerard at gmail.com
Tue Dec 4 23:10:42 UTC 2007


On 04/12/2007, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams at gnu.org> wrote:
>    >    [...] You can't reuse an article safely without attaching the
>    >    entire GFDL. [...]
>    > That applies to all copyright licenses, the GPL included.

>    It doesn't apply to CC-by-sa.

> Indeed it does.  It is the whole point of a license, you cannot know
> the license terms if you cannot see the license.
> |      * For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the
> |        license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link
> |        to this web page.


Er, no. A link to the licence web page is not including a copy of the
whole licence. That's the point of CC-by-sa being considered a more
sensible idea for Wikipedia than the present GFDL, which is
technically "free" but is monstrously ill-suited to it.


>    Attaching the entire GFDL 1.2 text is not meaningfully "free" for
>    photos or single-page texts. And how do you reasonably implement it
>    for a motion picture.

> This would fall under fair use.  But I fail to see what a motion
> picture has to do with this, if you use a copyrighted work, you have
> to note that, and its license.


No, you're answering something other than what I wrote. Wikimedia
Commons includes images and motion pictures under the GFDL. The
originals don't include the entire licence in the movie itself; how is
this to be meaningfully reused? The answer in practice is "it isn't" -
the licence fails in practice at reusability.


- d.



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