Moving Wikimedia projects from CC 3.0 to CC 4.0 licenses
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	John_Cummings
	Aug 25 2020, 12:31 PM

Description

What has happened so far

The WMF Board of Trustees discussed it and agreed Wikipedia should move to CC BY-SA 4.0 https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2016-11-13
There was a WMF consultation which took place about updating Wikipedia from CC BY-SA 3.0 to CC BY-SA 4.0 in which over 3/4 support for the change by the 400+ participants who took part. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Creative_Commons_4.0

Background information:

Currently text available under CC BY-SA 4.0 cannot be added to Wikipedia because it is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. However 3.0 text can be added to a 4.0 work.
Difference between 3.0 and 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/version4/#:~:text=Version%203.0%20included%20a%20provision,verbatim%20reproductions%20of%20a%20work

Questions:

WMF Legal: Would changing the license be done on all Wikimedia projects at once? Or could projects be changed independently of each other?
WMF Legal: It is my understanding that the WMF have already made a decision on this and the tasks left are about implementation, is this correct? What steps would need to be taken to make this change?
General: What was the process last time Wikimedia changed its license? Is the same process applicable this time?

Related Objects

Mentioned In: T319064: <ORG> Creative Commons 4.0 Licensing
T293615: Work on moving Wikipedia to Creative Commons 4.0

Event Timeline

John_Cummings created this task.Aug 25 2020, 12:31 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptAug 25 2020, 12:31 PM

Reedy added a project: WMF-General-or-Unknown.Aug 25 2020, 12:32 PM

@jrbs tried to add your WMF account for info, but it doesn't seem to work on phabrictor

Why "Wikipedia"? I suppose you meant "Wikimedia projects" (minus the usual exceptions). If this task is supposed to be an umbrella task to keep track of (the lack of) movement on this front, maybe a better summary is "Considering the move" or something.

@Mrjohncummings: Could you explain what is expected from WMF-Legal here please? Also see its project description. Thanks!

Sure, I don't know if a move to

In T261200#6408994, @Nemo_bis wrote:

Why "Wikipedia"? I suppose you meant "Wikimedia projects" (minus the usual exceptions). If this task is supposed to be an umbrella task to keep track of (the lack of) movement on this front, maybe a better summary is "Considering the move" or something.

Not sure if I mean Wikimedia or Wikipedia, depends on if all projects would adopt it at once or not. I'm not sure who makes the decision to change from one license to another, have asked the question to WMF legal above

For the records, this is not a place to expect answers from WMF Legal. :)

In T261200#6409069, @Aklapper wrote:

@Mrjohncummings: Could you explain what is expected from WMF-Legal here please? Also see its project description. Thanks!

Thanks, is it better now? Also I have no idea which tags this should go in, any ideas?

John_Cummings updated the task description. (Show Details)Aug 25 2020, 1:00 PM

In T261200#6409097, @Aklapper wrote:

For the records, this is not a place to expect answers from WMF Legal. :)

OK, thanks, what is the process to ask them questions?

Wugapodes subscribed.Aug 25 2020, 8:47 PM

@Mrjohncummings: See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/28/ linked in T261200#6409069

@Aklapper thanks very much

BEANS-X2 subscribed.Aug 28 2020, 6:51 PM

@Mrjohncummings: I'm not sure how to proceed here (I guess nobody is?)... Have you managed to contact Legal and/or the Board about this topic?

This was discussed a few times.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Creative_Commons_4.0/IRC_office_hour
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-May/090265.html

The legal side of things is tricky and the social side even trickier (it would be best to have a referendum like last time https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update ). WMF would need to spend considerable resources on a project with unclear benefits.

He7d3r subscribed.Oct 5 2020, 2:53 PM

Xover subscribed.Nov 15 2020, 11:08 AM

John_Cummings updated the task description. (Show Details)May 14 2021, 8:40 PM

John_Cummings added a subscriber: JVargas.

In T261200#6487866, @Aklapper wrote:

@Mrjohncummings: I'm not sure how to proceed here (I guess nobody is?)... Have you managed to contact Legal and/or the Board about this topic?

I didn't receive a reply to my email to them

Does anyone have any updates about this? Its quite a large problem in my outreach work with the UN and others

Thanks

John_Cummings updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 18 2021, 8:46 PM

John_Cummings updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 18 2021, 8:49 PM

John_Cummings mentioned this in T293615: Work on moving Wikipedia to Creative Commons 4.0.Oct 21 2021, 8:28 AM