Thanks for circulating this. Not to create a self-fulfilling prophecy here, but I suspect that 90% or more of those affected by this issue will not care or will not understand the urgency, and they will not do anything, either on their own sites or on-wiki. What are the practical implications of this if nothing happens and little attention is paid by anyone?
Newyorkbrad On 5/27/09, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > > The relicensing process is underway. This means we have only 2 months > to help GFDL wikis that want Wikipedia compatibility to follow suit. > The clause that allows GFDL wikis to be relicensed to CC-BY-SA 3 > expires on August 1 of this year. > > I am crossposting this from the licensing thread on foundation-l > because it is important and time sensitive. > > While the intent behind the August 1 sunset clause provision was to > "offer[] all wiki maintainers ample time to make their decision", this > has not yet worked out in practice. Many GFDL-licensed wiki > maintainers haven't looked at GFDL 1.3, aren't fully aware of > Wikipedia's decision to relicense, and have no idea there are hard > deadlines involved; nor have they though through the implications for > their current contributions to / reuse of Wikipedia. (I myself had > plans to organize an import of Medpedia content into WP before > realizing that this is not possible unless they choose to relicense -- > even though as of today both are GFDL wikis.) > > Please help add to the list and contact those that you know: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_relicensing > > > A selection of large GFDL wikis that have not confirmed plans to > change their licenses: > > Enciclopedia Libre > PlanetMath > Sourcewatch, congresspedia > the International Music Score Library Project > 实用查询Wiki (ReferenceWiki, cn.18dao.net) > 湖北百科 (wiki.027.cn) > WikiZnanie > Medpedia, WikiDoc > WikiTimeScale > Vikidia > > I've seen a few short discussions on Wikia wikis, but nothing > conclusive... any updates there? > > Smaller wikis are more likely to be unaware of the relicensing > decision or implications... and more likely to have been swayed by > "the license Wikipedia is using" when making their initial decision. > There are hundreds of them with great educational material, more than > the dozens listed on meta so far. In particular, I expect there are > many more Chinese, German, Japanese and Russian wikis out there... I > hope we can manage to reach most of them. > > > Recently Robert Rhode said: >> The migration is an incentive to other sites to also relicense. >> Given that, it behooves us to get moving early enough that other sites >> will also have time to react before the deadline. Seeing the changes >> we make will also give them a blueprint to what they may need to do. >> Incidentally, the news coverage of this event so far has been quite >> limited, which makes it more important that we have an outreach effort >> to communicate what is happening to other GFDL projects that may wish >> to change. > > The second point makes sense. We do need more outreach; a long-term > sitenotice for anons would be appropriate -- with links to how to > relicense your own wiki, and what this means for reuse of Wikimedia > material / importing your own into an article. > > Mainstream press coverage would be nice - perhaps after seeing which > other large wikis are planning to switch as well. > > SJ > -- > > * to be precise, when the license switch takes effect in mid-June, > externally-sourced GFDL content will be made retroactively > incompatible with Wikimedia projects back to November 2008. We have > until August 1 to show partner sites how to relicense so that we > remain compatible. > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
