In article <43C64418.9030901@microsoft.com>, Simon Marlow <simonmar@microsoft.com> wrote:
Ashley has a point though - we couldn't quote from the Haskell report on the wiki, or indeed quote source code from pretty much anywhere (most code has a non-PD license) if the whole wiki is PD. The wiki-wide license should contain the words "unless explicitly stated otherwise in the content" or somesuch, that way we can give attribution when we quote code.
I realise this contradicts some of what has already been said, but there is a conflict: making it easy to use content from the wiki implies a single license, but making it easy to use content from elsewhere on the wiki implies multiple licenses. A good compromise seems to be to have a default license (PD as suggested), but allow it to be overriden, sparingly, by explicit attribution in the content itself.
Let's start with a mandatory "public domain/all rights given away". If we find we need to include copyrighted material, it can be changed later without too much trouble. I don't want to keep the GFDL there any longer. -- Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA