Wikipedia talk:Comparison of GFDL and CC BY-SA

Compatibility question
I am still confused by recent changes to GFDL and current impact. GFDL material cannot be transitioned to CC-by-SA now, I know, for the reasons clearly spelled out here. What about transitioning CC-by-SA material into GFDL? Can text released under CC-by-SA be placed on Wikipedia, or is it forbidden because the GFDL documentation requirements are perceived as more restrictive? I'll be as grateful for an "I don't know" as any other reply, since I have to keep poking about until I turn up an answer, and this is just my starting point. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You are confusing me. There is a GFDL>CC-BY-SA compatibility temporarily only for Wikis. Only the copyright holder can put CC-BY-SA licensed text on a GFDL wiki. Any other use must ignore the license entirely. ViperSnake151 16:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry if I'm confusing you. :) I believe you have answered me in spite of your confusion, but I'll be specific in case not. At issue here is an article, Adam Fletcher (activist), which was copied from a free content encyclopedia licensed under CC-By-SA 2.5, here. Attribution has been supplied at the article's article's talk page. Obviously, this is well out of the province of fair use. The question relates to the cross-compatibility of CC-by-SA 2.5 -> GFDL 1.3. 2.5 requires attribution (check) and "share alike": "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one." Is GFDL sufficiently similar a license to permit redistributing the material here? Or are the specific requirements of 1.3 still different enough that the license is not "similar" for redistribution purposes? This document indicates that "GFDL text cannot be put inside a CC-BY-SA document unless it is used under the fair use doctrine." It does not indicate whether or not CC-BY-SA text can be put inside a GFDL document. If not, the article will need to be blanked for copyright violation and processed accordingly. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Putting the text in a GFDL work violates the license because its technically "building upon" that work, and the resulting work (the Wikipedia article), is technically a copyvio because you've violated the license because the GFDL is not CC-BY-SA. ViperSnake151 20:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * From curiosity, do you know why GFDL does not count as a "similar license to this one"? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Similar probably means "you can license it under CC-BY-SA-NC" or something. ViperSnake151 20:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and thanks for your efforts to get all this clarified on Wikipedia. I see you've tagged the article for processing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * now the article about adam fletcher (activist) is deleted... those two different copyright licenses really seem to be like water and oil, you just cant mix them. i dont know if my question is offtopic, but could it be possible to have an entire wikipedia article under the creative commons attribution sharealike license in such a case? i mean, when most of the good info about the topic is only available under CC-by-sa? other wikipedia-articles could still link to it, and then you more or less switched the whole article from water to oil, and the old GFDL would cause problems in that article, but it might improve the overall article.79.230.3.233 (talk) 18:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC) . i forgot to log in, so ill just sign it again Kurtilein (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * all off-wiki GFDL content added before November 1st will be eligible. All GFDL content originally published on a Wiki is safe'. Adam Fletcher article can be undeleted after this switch occurs because the licenses are still valid even though we "deleted" it (from public view. yes that is the horrible truth - we never actually "truly" delete it in most cases). ViperSnake151 19:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * thanks for your quick answer. i just love the concept that nothing can be truly deleted, just hidden further and further away. but what exactly does this mean? is it possible to have text or other media that is published under the creative commons-license in wikipedia articles? what does this tell us about off-wiki creative commons content? can all creative commons (by-sa) that was deleted earlier now be restored somehow?Kurtilein (talk) 00:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you wanted to, yeah. Once we make the switch, we won't be able to add GFDL content to Wikipedia, but we will be able to add CC-BY/BY-SA stuff. ViperSnake151 02:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles and discussion elsewhere
See: --Timeshifter (talk) 01:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * http://nic.suzor.com/blog/2008/20081106-gfdl_v1.3_released/wikipedia_can_relicense
 * http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/0150230

GFDL resources, can they still be used?
Now that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites are Creative Commons can WP:FDLR Wikipedia:GNU Free Documentation License resources still be used? If not could an Admin. please delete this page. This post is also at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Resource Exchange Kathleen.wright5 08:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites use both CCBYSA and GFDL. See WMF:Terms of Use. However, material cannot be imported from GFDL only sites. What page are you talking about? I presume you don't mean this project page, since you've got exactly the same language at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Resource Exchange. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I've got you. You mean GNU Free Documentation License resources. We wouldn't delete it, but it certainly needs to be amended and perhaps marked historical. Hmm. Good catch. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)