StrategyWiki talk:License

Discuss the StrategyWiki license on this page.

Licencing: CC-BY-SA instead of GFDL?
Hi,

May I inquire what was the reason to go with the GFDL as a licence instead of a Creative Commons licence such as cc-by-sa?

Thanks, Nyenyec 15:17, 21 April 2006 (PDT)


 * Well the biggest advantage is that content from other wiki sites (Wikibooks, [Gameinfo], etc.) can be copied here because we all share the same license. However I wasn't here at the time of the decision so the reasoning may be more complex for all I know. GarrettTalk 17:11, 21 April 2006 (PDT)


 * GFDL is Wikipedia-compatible, and that was a huge factor. We wanted to remain compatible with the largest collection of open content game information, guides, etc. We want to promote a working relationship between the projects.
 * Initially I almost considered something of a proprietary dual license that I termed a "community license"--we would place the content under the GFDL and also give the StrategyWiki organization--which isn't even an entity yet--full rights to all submissions. That was intended so that we would have the option of changing to any new or better open media license of the community's choosing in the future without being locked into GFDL exclusively. Basically, all content would still be licensed under the GFDL, but there would also be the option of choosing another license later by community vote. I scrapped that idea because it was too complicated, and I feared it would make users apprehensive.
 * If and when we gain traction, however, we may be able to ask the community what they think of a relicense or dual license, or even this "community license" that I just talked about. Of course if we decide to do this, the application of it would NOT be retroactive unless we can find the permission of those authors who have submitted work. I would be fine with having all of my work relicensed, and several other StrategyWikians might as well. Others may not, however. Or we may not be able to find them all. Anything we couldn't relicense could be either tagged or rewritten.
 * We are in an early enough stage to shake things up, but we'd have to have a community consensus. After this Digg thing, I'd like to see what happens to the community. Will it grow stronger? Will we gain more help? Once I have a fuller view of this, we'll probably put this and other issues up for debate. --echelon talk 17:27, 21 April 2006 (PDT)


 * Urg.. I see why some people prefer CC-BY-SA to GFDL. And it's not a nice reality. If that article is true, then we might want to consider some dual-licensing and relicensing in the future. I know it's impossible to change anything we already have to CC-BY-SA, but in the future we might want to make future articles CC-BY-SA. I'd like to hear your opinions on this issue. --echelon talk 23:03, 13 May 2006 (PDT)


 * Yes that article captures the gist of it perfectly. I for one would certainly support changing to CC-BY-SA. In addition to the reasons they gave I think its simplicity makes it simple for the average user to understand, and perhaps making them more likely to feel confident about licensing their contributions. However if a change is to be made it must be done NOW. Re-labelling the site itself is the fiddly bit.
 * The per-guide implementation however is easy, and can be done via templates. Take a look at the bottom of my user page for an example. Unfortunately IE's hatred of CSS means it doesn't work for it; however this is just the code I had on-hand, there are definitely more compatible methods. Anyway, this means licenses can be added or overridden (a button can be placed over top of another just as easily as beside it) straight from a template.
 * Wikinews recently changed their copyright from PD to CC-BY, see their copyright page for more (and especially note the wording of their footer). That might give you some ideas. But, anyway, this is definitely a decision that must be made as quickly as possible to both minimise the workload and also the amount of content under the GFDL. GarrettTalk 02:29, 14 May 2006 (PDT)


 * Having this discussion now should be an immediate priority for us. I can't believe I didn't consider the impact of doing nothing about this before. We need everyone who edits here to contribute their thoughts and opinions on this issue so we can make a wise choice. While I'd like to switch licenses now, whatever we do will have a large impact on our future. Picking a license that prohibits multi-licensing and isn't future-compatible will box us into a hole that we don't want to be in. First, let's look at the available options and weigh what each provides for us. We need a long-term solution that will work for many, many years. Perhaps beyond the scope of our own time here, to best accomodate whomever future contributors and users of this project may be.
 * If we can't decide on CC or BSD or something else, I also have another possible idea that I had thought about before. What about a "StrategyWiki License" that pertains specifically to the contents of this wiki? We would create this with the future in mind, so that we could predict and adapt to any future legal issues that may arise. Therefore, the first thing we would state is that people can "at their choice, use this version or any later version" of the license. Sort of like the GPL, this gives us future-compatibility. Secondly, we could draw up the terms of the license to be as dual-licensing friendly as we want to be and as copyleft as we want to be. After reading about CC-BY-SA, I feel it is much more open and far less restrictive than the GFDL. Moreover, the most important advantage a custom license would give this project is that the project can adapt--with a custom license, we could retroactively apply important changes to anything licensed under a StrategyWiki license. Older content wouldn't be stuck in the past forever. (So long as that is part of the provisions for contributing.) Older revisions would still be under the license version they were initially published under, but the project as a whole would be under the latest version of the license--this is what I mean by "future expandability".
 * Now, there are three problems that come to mind with this (and you may be able to think of more). The first, and greatest, is that the license could evolve into something bad. Who is to prevent this from happening? We could say that the license would be democratic, but there is always a small fear inside me that it could be pulled into the depths of something that takes away usage rights of the public and grants it to some all-powerful group. Think the FSF, who ask all contributors to waive their rights to copyright on all contributed code. Bad, bad, bad! I could only see an FSF scenario becoming more restrictive, more GFDLish. Then again, IIRC, I believe it was the Debian project that manages to do fairly well in licensing? The only goal I am aiming for is to ensure StrategyWiki content is always going to be relevent, useful, and free to use with as little restriction as possible. Is a custom license too bad for its own good? Is it overkill?
 * The second disadvantage is that a custom license is unknown. New contributors to our project may see our license, but without the familiarity of Creative Commons, GFDL, or BSD, they won't have a clue whether our license is actually authentic and can be trusted. Or what it states without reading it all themselves.
 * The third and final disadvantage of a custom license is that it has to hold up, legally. Who would write it? I'm not a lawyer. Could we just copy from the CC-BY-SA and delete/change what we don't like about it? Or add things we feel are missing? Ths is yet one more question that needs to be answered.
 * While a custom license for this project would be a lot of work, I do feel that the advantage of forward-proofing contributions for change of license would be a significant gain that would save us large amounts of trouble in the future. Maybe we could simply state this in an ammendment to a copied Creative Commons license? What are you thoughts? --echelon talk 11:15, 14 May 2006 (PDT)

I have several comments but I will try to be concise:


 * Creative Commons. I tend to dislike CC licenses because authors tend to choose the noncommercial (NC) variants. If we pick CC-BY-SA, then we do not have that problem.
 * Attribution Withdrawl. The CC-BY-SA 2.5 licenses have an attribution withdrawl clause, which appears to agree with the recommendations in the debian-legal Summary of Creative Commons 2.0 Licenses. However, even though Debian thinks that it is okay, I personally dislike this clause:
 * If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any credit as required by clause 4(c), as requested. – clause 4(a) of CC-BY-SA 2.5 Legal Code
 * Transparent copies. The GFDL requires everyone who distributes "more than 100" copies of a guide to provide a "Transparent" copy (in human-editable text such as the MediaWiki markup, not in generated PDF or Microsoft Word). The CC-BY-SA seems to lack that requirement, which is another reason why I normally prefer the GFDL. However, I only care that this wiki has a Transparent version. If we always use MediaWiki, I can Special:Export/Main Page and get the wiki markup, even if wiki is CC-BY-SA.
 * Custom license. The text of the CC-BY-SA 2.5 is itself under in the public domain: "We do not assert a copyright in the text of our licenses. So yes, CC will let you edit the CC license to make a new license.
 * Dual-licensing. It might make sense to declare that after date X, all contributions to StrategyWiki must be licensed under both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA. However, date X would have to after whenever we finish importing Wikibooks content.

My recommendation? Stay GFDL; or switch to a dual-license between GFDL and CC-BY-SA. --Kernigh 12:32, 14 May 2006 (PDT)


 * Hm. Well I'm undecided. I certainly don't like the idea of dual-licensing. Not only does this prevent importing pretty much any other wiki's material but it also could confuse potential contributors. As for the other possibilities, CC has some definite flaws as both you and the Debian people pointed out but it has the advantage of being both well-known and compatible. A custom license has downsides that may outweigh its upsides, but does allow any number of subtle license changes to be made to suit our needs. GarrettTalk 20:18, 17 May 2006 (PDT)


 * This is a very sticky issue, and I don't expect us to solve it without more input. I've personally been thinking that we should try to go create a custom license as a direct copy of CC-BY-SA. The reason I don't want us to go with CC-BY-SA is that future versions of that license may turn into something we don't like. If we have our own, there's nothing to stop us from turning our license into anything short of the BSD license, should we ever feel that was the best course of action. (But of corse this is an example only, I don't think that would ever happen.)
 * The problems with this, however, are the same as I listed before--especially the part about users not knowing the terms of a custom license. I do think I may have come up with a simple solution, however. If we keep the differences between any given version of a custom license and any given role model open source license as small as possible, we could have an easy reference point to show users. Then it would be as simple as pointing out the minor and unique differences in our license. Or, let's say we don't do that. We could just as easily create our own succinct explanation. Anyhow, if we do wind up creating something, I want to run it by the OSI for approval.
 * Finally, since we're already trying to work on something that addresses the problems inherent in licensing wikis, why don't we work on a license that can be used by all wikis? There's no license I've seen that is really suitable for wikis at all, and there really needs to be one. We could call it "WikiLicense" or something. The major problems with the GFDL are that you must provide full changelogs, you can't easily include copyrighted texts or images, you can't easily multi-license, etc. The problems with Creative Commons is the whole "pick and choose" model. (If something is really "free" it must still be available for use in commercial purposes, whether you like it or not.) Imagine if all wikis used a single license and it made copying possible between all wikis. Wouldn't that be awesome? echelon [[Image:Ocarina.gif|...]] 04:22, 19 May 2006 (PDT)


 * Actually, the GFDL does not require full changelogs; it only requires a "History" section acknowledging previous documents which you modified. This is why I created a NetHack/History page at Wikibooks, because I copied some text from one Wikibook to another Wikibook. Even the FSF does not include a full changelog with the prototypical GFDL'd document, the GNU Emacs Manual. There is an available ChangeLog, but at the bottom it gives a copyright not allowing modification. The ChangeLog is not an Invariant Section of the Emacs Manual (unlike the GPL, Manifesto, and Distrib info), so it is not part of the manual and the GFDL does not require that you keep the changelog with the manual. --Kernigh 11:46, 30 May 2006 (PDT)

Labelling old content?
This all sounds good. However the next big step is how to deal with guides already under the GFDL. It shouldn't be impossible to gradually replace GFDL content with fresh content under the new license, but there needs to be some way of handling things in the meantime. GarrettTalk 16:24, 28 May 2006 (PDT)

Also, if this procedure looks to be logical enough it might be a good idea to import CC-by-SA guides as well (such as these) for seeding of future content. The biggest problem with both this and the GFDL material however is ensuring that content is truly done from scratch and not just pasted from the old license version. GarrettTalk 16:31, 28 May 2006 (PDT)


 * We can have, for example, a New-Wiki-License guide that does only worlds 1 and 2 with a separate GFDL guide that does worlds 3 to 10. There is no need to link everything into one executable, as is necessary with free software. The annoying part would having editors understand the differences between the different licenses. --Kernigh 12:12, 30 May 2006 (PDT)


 * Or we could try the EmacsWiki approach: "This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public License. Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive this work under the GNU Free Documentation License, the CreativeCommons ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or similar licenses." However, I am not sure whether or not that license is copyleft. --Kernigh 12:15, 30 May 2006 (PDT)


 * If you are going to change the license for the wiki, just put a note at the bottom of any page which uses the new license. For example, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet has a Public Domain notice at the bottom to let people know that it is not under the GFDL. Speaking of Public Domain, that's the license that I used for my wiki. Why not just use that? Gerard Foley 20:29, 1 June 2006 (PDT)

Relicense StrategyWiki Plan - This is important!
Time to relicense StrategyWiki--if we are ever to do it--is now. If we wait any longer, it may become a terribly difficult process. Ultimately, I have decided that I want to go with our own copyleft license, modeled *exactly* after the Creative Commons BY-SA. The reasons why we should do our own license is because I believe we can make ammendments later (with the help of a lawyer) that are relevant to our purposes and allow us to make certain requirements, uses, etc. that the CC doesn't. Here's are the goals I think we should have:


 * I think our license should be as "free" as possible. The GFDL is very restrictive and will hinder a lot of people from using our content. Say someone wants to publish a collection of our guides--they'd have to include each page's entire revision history. (This is a rediculous requirement for our purposes!) The GFDL also has several quirks that make including screenshots and other images a murky matter. Multilicensing is also more difficult with GFDL than other licenses.
 * We shouldn't be public domain: IGN, CNET, or conceivably anyone would take our content, modify it, and then prevent us from using their modifications, however useful they may be. This isn't to say that we wouldn't allow IGN, CNET, et al. to use our content--of course we'd like that! It'd be the sincerest form of flattery. We just want them to do so in a copyleft manner so that any improvements they make will still be open to anyone. (After all, they would be borrowing this content for free to begin with!)
 * There are some instances where we will want select groups to include revision histories--Wikis, database projects, etc.--so that they will not be lost in the event StrategyWiki's server gets hit by a giant meteorite or something. The CC BY-SA won't allow us to do this, but with our own modifications to that license we can. Because wikis have the power and capability to store revision histories, we would want our license to state that they should do so whenever possible.
 * There might be other stuff we want to add later on. Who knows what the future will bring. We should be ready to adapt, and using our own ammendable license will allow us to do so better than using any other license.

If we do this, our first license will be called StrategyWiki Public License 1.0, and the content will be exactly that of the latest Creative Commons BY-SA, except every reference to "Creative Commons" will be changed to "StrategyWiki".

To make understanding our license easy, we will provide a diff to the Creative Commons BY-SA and a short document explaining why we have a custom license and what it does.

Finally, before we do anything of this sort we will have to mark all old pages with a GFDL 1.2 marker icon to indicate that those pages (and subsequent edits) are licensed under the GFDL. We'll then ask all of our writers if they would be willing to relicense their submissions under the StrategyWiki License; we'll create a page for editors to sign their names if they are for doing so. For pages we are unable to convert from the GFDL, that is okay! We will rewrite them later, concentrating on new content for the time being.

So, have I made a reasonably good case to do this? What are your thoughts on this? Yea or Nay?


 * Yea - Sounds like a good idea to me. You make a lot of good points and I feel that having a custom license would be the best way to ensure that we can continue writing without too many difficulties.  I also agree that this needs to be done ASAP.--Dukeruckley 05:19, 23 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Yea also. It does indeed sound good. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 09:09, 23 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Yea - Works for me. But a big problem is getting the old guides relicensed, It would be hard to get every single editor of every page to sign or somthing to relicense stuff. Also, If we are going to have revisions to the StrategyWiki license every so often, in order to differentiate it from the CC-BY-SA license, and add stuff, would we have to go through relicensing every time the license is updated? --blendmaster 09:25, 23 June 2006 (PDT)
 * That's a good point. May I ask what old guides we're talking about?  Are we talking walkthrough like this one?  In that case, it might be a better idea to rewrite it in order to wikify it anyway.--Dukeruckley 11:03, 23 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Blendmaster, I'd better clarify! We shouldn't ever have to relicense again after we move to the StrategyWiki license, because in having our own license we would use the wording "You may use this or any subsequent version of this license," which in essence would make all of our old content forward-compatible with the newer licenses. I believe this is how the GPL and all other licenses work. For example, let's say we have a revision of the Zelda guide from July 2006 under the StrategyWiki License 1.0. If in December we update to the StrategyWiki License 1.1 (or whatever number), the Zelda revision from July 2006 would be licensed under the 1.0 and the 1.1. Any revisions after December would only be licensed under the 1.1 license. Do you follow how this works? I feel for this reason it gives us a great amount of control over the project so that we can make sure that our content is always as open as we want it to be.
 * Well, ok then, that sounds fine! --blendmaster 11:50, 24 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Dukeruckley, I agree. We will probably rewrite guides like that entirely. Nevertheless, if we can stick a "This page is currently licensed under the GFDL" template on all of those pages, we can keep them on the wiki until we are ready to rewrite them. echelon [[Image:Ocarina.gif|...]] 12:42, 23 June 2006 (PDT)
 * I'm trying to get the MapleStory guide transwikied here from wikibooks, and that guide already has a large number of contributors and a lot of information. Rewriting the whole thing would take a LOT of work.  How would this licence change deal with that? -- Prod 14:05, 28 June 2006 (PDT)
 * It wouldn't really do much, that guide would have to be clearly marked as being under the GNU FDL license, but we can still have it here until a possible rewrite. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:16, 28 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Support, I'm going to import Template:PublicDomain from wikipedia so people can drop it on their userpages to show they release their content into the public domain, this template can be changed to reflect other licenses as well (or you could find their boxes on wikipedia). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:23, 24 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Template:PublicDomain is excellent! I'll make one for GFDL, and the various Creative Commons licenses as well!  ech elon  11:01, 25 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Support. I thought I already voted... GarrettTalk 13:59, 25 June 2006 (PDT)

I'm going to wait on Garrett and a few other regulars to weigh in on this, and then I think we're decided.  ech elon  11:01, 25 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Yea, sounds like a good plan. Alex 18:54, 25 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Comment - I'm curious - in what way does the Creative Commons prevent you to... distribute the past revision histories, or whatever it is that you're refering to. Any previous version of the information on the site which was licensed CC-By-SA(-NC) would surely also be under this license? Also, if your own license is similar to the CC-By-SA then wouldn't the sharealike force the relicensor to keep it under this different license. There're too many licenses in the world, and it would be (in my opinion) better to keep a vanilla creative commons one - Estel 04:29, 29 June 2006 (PDT)

StrategyWiki Public License 1.0 Draft
Check out this draft of the license we're working on. (Here's the exact revision that I am refering to in writing this.) It was imported from the Creative Commons by-sa 2.5 and all references to Creative Commons were changed to StrategyWiki. I also removed a few small sections, such as section 1.g regarding "license elements", which we clearly do not have. You can check the colored diff to see the exact changes I made.

Please carefully read over the document to make sure I have made no errors in copying it from the Creative Commons by-sa 2.5 license!

Also important: I do believe that the text of the CC-by-sa 2.5 is public domain, but if it is not we need to consider the ramifications of copying directly from it. Does anyone know this for certain? (I'm still researching this.)

If all is clear so far, we should begin work on formalizing this license. I'll try to get some legal people to read over it to make sure it is sound in principle and legally. We'll want to write up a "mission statement", if you will, to make sure that this license lives up to all of our hopes for it. Doing all of these things will take a little while, but I am confident that this is a good move to make.

Feel free to edit the license if you spot problems, but be sure to leave your comments when doing so. echelon  15:44, 23 June 2006 (PDT)


 * In favor of the relicense. I've read through everything in the draft and it looks like it has everything we want. Probably gonna' want this done as soon as possible. I'll look through it again to spot any errors. Good work. ;) --Antaios 12:03, 25 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Well, I'm not really a contributor here, but it seems silly to make Just Another Open Source License, as the material will become much harder to move stuff around from/to other Open Source wikis, and the benefit of making up a new license is really very small. Is there any reason why can't we double license GFDL+CC-BY-SA or do something standard like that ? Taw 12:27, 3 July 2006 (PDT)

I'm all for this, so as soon as a template is made for this new license, I'll add it to my user page. Just notify me when the new license is completed. You have many ways to contact me already, echelon, so there is no need to add contact information. I don't know whether the cleanup done by another user would require that user to agree to the new license, but consider me as an almost definite. I'll just have to make sure that the new license does in fact include what you say it will. --Tathar 11:34, 28 August 2006 (CDT)

Unnamed Gaming Wiki License 1.0 / StrategyWiki Public License 1.01
As I've already mentioned I'd like to rename the license. However I'd also like this new reborn edition to have changes made as outlined by debian-legal. Debian-legal's suggestions make perfect sense, and their rewordings are sound. Although the changes will be slight the core criticisms of CC licenses will be dealt with, and we'll be left with a strong wiki-oriented license.

If these changes are to be held off until the license is renamed then that new license would be 1.0. If however we decide to push these changes through sooner it will instead be SWPL 1.01 (or 1.0.1, or whatever). As for the idea of checking changes with a lawyer, the debian-legal team are lawyers to begin with. This will only be a slight alteration (hence the tiny version number change) and any unforseen problems can surely be corrected before a big update such as 1.1 comes.

Now the reason why I'm suddenly interested in pushing these changes through is that UESPWiki authors have been discussing adding a license to their previously unlicensed wiki, both to protect contributors' rights and also to encourage sharing of their content. I outlined the problems of the cc-by-nc-sa license they had originally selected and of Creative Commons licenses in general.

Wyre seemed interested in the goals of our license ("as you point out, there are still problems ... It would be nice if there were something out there that was a mature alternative") but soon discovered that it wasn't yet at that stage ("I checked the StrategyWiki license and it still has the removal clause"). If people can even be considering what our license promises we must be on the right track!

Things move relatively slowly at UESPWiki; I'm not sure if these changes can be sorted out in time to make it a viable option for them, but getting sites like that on board would help make this license a genuinely plausible option for others in the future. GarrettTalk 17:12, 2 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I won't get a chance to reply as fully as I would like as I'm dead tired and about to collapse into bed, but I've always liked the idea of creating a general purpose license for everyone (be it geared for wikis or media in general). My only suggestions for the night are these: it should be as free as possible so that it encourages use of the licensed material, and we need to hurry so that we can finish up relicensing SW by the end of the month so that it's no longer a burden to our progress.
 * Tomorrow I'd like to write a list of every requirement of our license (freedoms vs restrictions) as well as the license's mission statement so that we keep on track for delivering on those requirements. Expect a good reply from me tomorrow.  ech elon  20:57, 2 July 2006 (PDT)
 * Check out User:Echelon/Open_Media!  ech elon  02:58, 4 July 2006 (PDT)

Relicensing issues
I know this seems a bit harsh, but for projects like this that have been using one license and then decide to switch to another license, you have to keep this in mind:

All content that is moved from one licensing format to another must be 100% compatable with the new license, warts and all. This includes custom licenses and some of the other approachs that have been used here.

I'm not suggesting that I mandate a license for this wiki, but I am pointing out that if you do a drastic switch of a license that makes the content incompatable, you might as well simply re-launch the website from scratch. Keep in mind that normal copyright issues would then prevail and the content that you are "duplicating" would be illegal for you to use.

Also keep in mind that the GFDL is "viral". That means that any derivitive content as defined by copyright law must also have that same copyright license.... even after you have done the "switch". And there can't be any additional clauses to this license or for that matter any modification to the GFDL except as approved by the Free Software Foundation.

One other way you can get this to happen is to have each and every copyright holder agree to the change. This is sometimes done on very small projects where everybody is known. For the content that was moved here from Wikibooks, that will not be an option at all.

Mind you, this was an issue with Wikinews when that project was started, and their solution was to start out as 100% public domain content, primarily so they could easily relicense that earlier content later.

My very strong recommendation is that if you decide to switch the license for content that has been "contaminated" by someone other than very active participants of this project agreeing to this switch, that you simply delete that content altogether. It can't be dual-licensed if that permission wasn't granted by the original author. Either that or hire one damn good lawyer that understands copyleft concepts and be very prepared to take on the GFDL directly in a legal fight.

BTW, "rewriting" pages is also considered a derivitive work under copyright law. Don't go there to deal with copyright issues unless it is a full rewrite of the full content that you can "prove" legally without any contaminated GFDL text. By hosting the GFDL content, you are demonstrating that it is contaminated. --Robert Horning 12:02, 22 July 2006 (CDT)