This page is for discussing how best to display Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License. Questions regarding the implications and requirements of this license should not be posted here, but are best asked at Wikipedia talk: Copyrights.

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Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License is permanently protected from editing, as it is a page which should not be edited significantly for legal or other reasons. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License page.
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Caps, ©

The GNU license headings are written in all-caps, and it uses (C) and (c) to denote copyright, rather than the preferable © symbol, which is legally less ambiguous. This is evidently so it can be transmitted intact in 7-bit text format, but there's no reason to do this in the rich HTML of Wikipedia (other than for users who might cut and paste it into such a format). I would suggest we make these substitutions, as they would not, in any way, alter the legal meaning of the document, but would make it easier to read. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 16:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection, although this sounds like fixing something which ain't broke.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 02:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The original text [1] has caps and (c), and I suspect "changing it is not allowed" will be the determining factor here, even for format changes. —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 05:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, probably. It's just not very Wikipedia-looking, and things like all-caps headers would have been fixed very quickly anywhere else. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 16:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it? It's not Wikipedia-looking because we didn't write it. We just use it. And to use it, we can't change it. So we don't change it. Maybe we can make it look nice once we migrate to the Creative Commons license.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 21:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure he folks at FSF wouldn't mind us tweaking capitalization (and if they did, it's obviously not an actionable infraction of the permissions anyway). Though I agree that it's not a big problem as is. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Spoken version of the text is NOT a verbatim copy

I'm not a wikipedia editor or anything, but out of curiosity i clicked on the spoken version button. The date and version of the document are right, however the adress of the FSF (i suppose) is different in the spoken version. I'm not sure it matters much ( i doubt postal addresses can be copyrighted :D ), but it could be misleading, so i am just letting you know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.158.196 (talk) 15:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Well the edit to change the address occurred just over five months after the spoken version was recorded. It's not a big deal because a new version of the GFDL will be released relatively soon. Graham87 04:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Practical Question

Guys, I've written a nonfiction book and I would like to make a set of appendices out of Wikipedia articles. There is some background information that Wikipedia explains very well: but if I have to sacrifice copyright of the book to do that, that would be a dealbreaker.

So: can I publish Wikipedia articles as an appendix with the GNU free documentation license, making the appendix also available on the web, while having in the same book my own work which remains under my copyright?

I'd much appreciate an explanation. Thanks - CC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.121.40 (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, any printed material (if more than 100 copies) requires the GFDL licence to be printed in full as well. However, if someone knows differently, please correct me as I'm not an expert. —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 20:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Tivedshambo has it correctly, I believe. As long as you include the full text of the GFDL with the articles, it should be ok. I think the GFDL would also require that you include copies of the edit histories as well (see section 4-I for this requirement).--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

However, don't take our words for it: Wikipedia:Copyrights has an in-depth discussion of how to do what you would like to do.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I've put a link to Wikipedia:Copyrights at the top of this page (and taken the opportunity to do some archiving at the same time) —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 16:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Good call.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I don't see how I could include the history of an article in printed text (without it becoming pretty ugly); and they'll be extracts anyway. I'll check out the copyright article you mention. 19:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)CC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.121.40 (talk)

Italian interwiki

Please add interwiki it:Wikipedia:Testo della GNU Free Documentation License. Thanks--Trixt (talk) 08:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Y Done —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 08:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Slightly dumb question.

Sorry I am trying to ensure that the Schools Wikipedia complies with this licence but I keep rereading it. Is Wikipedia itself an aggregate in terms of this licence and does it publish itself as an aggregate? If so does it comply given it doesn't carry the copyright notice referred to at the foot of the licence. Anyone know?--BozMo talk 21:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

This question is not dumb. Not even slightly. (I'm not going to say that there are no stupid questions, because there are.) From what I know, each Wikipedia article is treated as an independent document, separately licensed under the GFDL. However, because all of the articles are released under the GFDL, it seems to me that section 6 ("Collections of Documents") is more applicable to the way Wikipedia is distributed. The Aggregations section seems to be more referring to aggregating GFDL-licensed works with non-GFDL works, which doesn't seem to apply to your case, either (unless Schools Wikipedia incorporates non-GFDL material). As for the second part of your question, every Wikipedia page carries a footer (under the categories, see below), specifically carrying the copyright notice. Hope that helps, --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I am not a lawyer.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok. But the copyright notice doesn't have the format "Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME." as far as I can see? --BozMo talk 20:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Point. My best reply would be that the footer does list the date it was last modified, although not in that format. So I just don't know. My advice: contact MGodwin (the Wikimedia general counsel) with your question. (And then post his answer back here, if you would be so kind.) Thanks!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 23:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone posted this on the en mailing list when I asked. It sounds right, or at least as well reasoned as anything else we have seen: "The way I see it the Document referred to in the GFDL cannot be an individual Wikipedia article. It has to be the whole of Wikipedia. If the Document were an individual article then Wikipedia would be in breach of its own license. Every time people copy text between articles then they would create a Modified Version under the GFDL. They mostly do not comply with GFDL section 4 under these circumstances on a number of points.

So the only sensible interpretations are the whole of English Wikipedia or the whole of Wikipedia as the GFDL Document. This has the following implications for GFDL compliance: - only need to give network location of Wikipedia, not individual articles - only need to give five principal authors of Wikipedia, not of individual articles - no real section Entitled "History", so no requirement to copy that

This makes a lot of sense to me as: - I don't believe adding five principal authors of individual articles adds a lot of value. In any case this would lead to a lot of disputes and maybe gaming of the system if ever a system of defining principal authors was introduced. - the network location of articles is problematic in the general case of renames - the network location of articles (and thus edit histories and authors) is generally easily found from the article title and the Wikipedia URL - the spirit of GFDL history doesn't seem likely to me to intend every single minor edit - often copies (like Schools Wikipedia) would not want to include vandalism edit histories". However this is an odds with the GFDL compliance pages on Wikipedia which (as the above) are all someone's original research. Presumably only a well sourced external document could resolve this? --BozMo talk 11:08, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Compatibility Question

Is the GFDL compatible with the Creative Commons Public Domain license? I know I can put Public Domain contents into Wikipedia articles, but can I do the other way around? The GDFL says "[...] derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense." So, are they free in the same sense? - Tekoteko (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the CC Public Domain certification isn't really a license, per se. All it says is that you believe to the best of your knowledge that the work you are attaching it to is in the public domain, and thus free for anyone to use for anything. Anything in the public domain can be used in Wikipedia. However, work licensed under the GFDL cannot be released into the public domain without permission from all of the authors, so Wikipedia articles cannot be certified as public domain unless you get permission from all of the authors listed in the history. So the GFDL freedom is much narrower than public domain.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 00:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Software displaying Wikipedia content

Hi, I want to develop a software using some part of Wikipedia as output for the user: when the user specify some options a wikipedia page is displayed. I want to know if there is a limitation of the license of my software or the license related to the documentation itself. Thanks. Pyabo

I think it would depend on whether the software was simply taking the user to a Wikipedia page, or whether the Wikipedia page was packaged with the software. If your software is simply redirecting a user to the en.wikipedia.org website, then I doubt you need to worry about our licenses at all. However, if you wish to include Wikipedia pages in your software package, then you need to follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers.27_rights_and_obligations. It would also be a good idea to read the rest of Wikipedia:Copyrights, as well. Any further questions you have would probably be better answered by posting at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights. Also, you can sign your comments by typing four tildes at the end of your talk page posts, like this: ~~~~. Cheers!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 02:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Should we update this to 1.3?

Should this page be updated to the new GFDL 1.3 license?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd say no, for two reasons:

1) Is it confirmed that Wikipedia is using 1.3 yet? WP:COPYRIGHT still states that text is licensed under 1.2

2) Some users upload files using the (legitimate) {{GFDL-1.2}} tag, which states version 1.2 and no other versions. That points to this page.

 —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 17:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Edittools and WP:COPYRIGHT state clearly "GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version"; Free Software Foundation itself said that. I support updating.--OsamaK 18:29, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If this page is updated, we will need to create a page for the 1.2 version, and ensure all 1.2 only licences point to that first. —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 22:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)