Wikipedia:Revocation of GFDL is not permitted
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
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This page in a nutshell: The GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) is a legal license allowing use of text. Withdrawal of licence is not available for any Wikipedia contributor. Actions which attempt to revoke the GFDL from a user's contributions are not permitted. |
All contributions to Wikipedia are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Revocation of the GFDL is not permitted by individuals or organizations who contribute to Wikipedia, as this would affect the ability of the entire project to exist as a freely-editable, freely-available, encyclopedia.
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[edit] Contributions
All user text contributions are entered into an edit box with the text below it reading (as of November 28 2007):
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- "You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."
This is a legal licence for future use, and therefore withdrawal of licence is not available for any Wikipedia contributor. When you write at Wikipedia, you are making your contributions open to all people in the world, at all times, under that licence, and anyone in the world may use them.
That is what an encyclopedia is for, and it applies to all users, and all contributions of knowledge and text, on this site.
[edit] Irrevocability and remedy
The GFDL is irrevocable, and can only be terminated under the provisions of Section 9 of the license. Section 9 allows that you can revoke the license from somebody who has broken the conditions of the license. Accordingly, no attempted revocations of the GFDL will be honored or recognized by this site, unless they meet the criteria set out in Section 9.
The GFDL can only be challenged in a court of law.
[edit] Community-imposed sanctions
Editors in the past who have persisted in trying to revoke the GFDL terms of their work have been banned while they have persisted in their claim.
Making such a claim is akin to making legal threats. GFDL is not a Wikipedia community-generated policy. It is not subject to actionable community discussion or editing, nor is its applicability subject to debate outside of a court of law. In common with the way that editors are blocked while they threaten to pursue other kinds of legal action, someone who intends to mount a legal challenge against Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is not invited to edit Wikipedia while they do so.
[edit] Rights
All editors have the 'right to leave' and the 'right to fork'. However, this does not mean that their contributed content leaves with them; only their participation in the community ends, and all forked content is still subjected to the GFDL.
[edit] Why would this be a problem?
Claims of this nature present a serious risk to the site because they are proclaiming an intention not to abide by the licensing agreement that makes the entire site possible. Wikipedia is not possible without the GFDL, which allows our content to be freely distributed and freely edited. Editors must be aware that they do not have a right to challenge the entire basis of the project and continue participating in it at the same time.
[edit] Multi-licensing
Some editors have been contributing using multi-licensing agreements. The status of this is still the subject of community debate. However all original text contributions in Wikipedia are subject to the GFDL, regardless of any other additional licenses that an editor might apply to his or her contributions. Accordingly, this policy only applies to the GFDL.
[edit] Wikimedia Foundation's official position
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the English Wikipedia and various other projects, has not to date expressed an opinion on this matter.
