Licensing update

This page in a nutshell: we have until August 1, 2009 to change this wiki's license from GFDL to CC-BY-SA. Please comment below.

Background

GFDL (the Gnu Free Documentation License) is what all contributions on our wiki are currently licensed under. It allows people to use everything we add to the wiki for any purpose as long as the author is attributed and all derivative works use the same license (GFDL). GFDL, however, was intended for software documentation, not general-purpose works. Another license, the CC-BY-SA license, is basically identical to GFDL, but it is intended for general-purpose works, and has much greater usage. GFDL has a clause in it that specifically allows us to switch licenses to CC-BY-SA if we choose to do so, but only during a window of time that ends on August 1 (3 weeks from this writing).

Wikipedia, along with most other Wikimedia-hosted wikis, has made this switch. If we are to remain compatible with them (allowing the legal copying of content from, for example, Wikipedia to our wiki and vice versa), we'll have to switch too, and before August 1.

Are there any objections to switching our license to CC-BY-SA? Please comment below.

Relevant links

• Wikimedia's page on their own licensing update
• Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-SA)
• Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL)

Comments and votes

Please add your comments/questions here.

• I assume this would be version 3.0 of cc-by-sa? - DavidGaliel 22:28 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although like the GFDL, Creative Commons licenses allow users to choose later versions of the same license if they choose (section 4b of the legal code); so this means that when Creative Commons comes out with the next version of CC-BY-SA, if it's basically the same as 3.0, then people could reuse our content under the newer version of CC-BY-SA if they choose. -kotra 07:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• I think cc-by-sa is good Ray 17:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• I support the transition to cc-by-sa - DavidGaliel 20:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Just reiterating my support for this change, already expressed on the list. Who else do we need to ask? -Pete Forsyth 20:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

• Just so my position is clear, I also support the transition to CC-BY-SA. -kotra 22:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)