[wp-docs] More on Copyright

[Firas D.]

Ryan Boren wrote:

> Yes, it's not the most ideal license for documentation, but it's what 
> we're stuck with, I believe.  Relicensing old content can be a pain.  
> Changing the license for new content is possible. And big contributors 
> like you and Lorelle could dual-license all of your existing 
> contributions.  That would move a lot of the content forward to a new 
> license. 

+1. I'd like to see a discussion on the license pursued with as much 
vigour rather than this one about copyright arcana. Why was the GPL 
chosen over the CC licenses  or the GFDL?

If the powers that be just prefer it, then maybe those who disagree 
should add to their user pages another license that their copyrighted 
work can be shared under, as well as the GPL. Preferably a common one 
among such people, arrived to after discussion. It's an advantage of the 
fact that copyright was not transferred that multilicensing may occur.

The CC Attribution-Sharealike, for example. The CC folk have tailored 
the 2.5 version of their licenses to the exact situation we're 
discussing here (everyone to a wiki holds their own copyright but the 
attribution can be just to the collective wiki).

The biggest problem I see is that if someone wants to reuse the codex 
they're going to have to redistribute their work under a GPL license. A 
GPL license for a tutorial, or for a book?! We'll not just be making the 
open-access portion of the WP philosophy viral, but we'd be making a 
*bad decision* viral.

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