(sorry if you already know this, just want to clarify. All AIUI, IANAL, etc)
neither am i!-)
If you publish something under licence A, you still remain the copyright holder, and can later also publish it under licence B. You can also publish it combined with other material under licence B.
yes, and nobody is forced to sign on to that waiver list, either. but some of those who do might find it hampering rather than encouraging their own contributions. knowing as they do that someone else might publish their results for and before them, and that they have given full permission for that to happen. i would not like to see list contributions from those active community members falter because of such possible side-effects. most uses do not even seem to require that waiver. and those who do not sign on might still be perfectly happy to respond to most requests with a simple "ok, go ahead".
why should we have to think about licensing at all?
If you want code you write to be distributed by Debian, for example, then you need to license it appropriately.
yes, and for the wiki it makes sense, and for open-source projects it makes sense, and i prefer the least limiting licenses whenever possible. i was just pointing out that the default copyright might make more sense for the mailing list, imho. a simple email informing the original authors shouldn't be that hard, should it? jao (just another opinion;-) claus