The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the popular Wikipedia website, has called for the project's contributors to vote on a proposal which calls for the adoption of the Creative Commons Atribution Share-Alike (CC-By-SA) license. This change would lower the barriers for repurposing content from the Internet encyclopedia.

Wikipedia content is currently made available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which was devised by the Free Software Foundation to govern the distribution of technical documentation that was produced by the GNU project. The license was adopted for Wikipedia early in the project's existence. When Wikipedia participants submit content, the editing page currently includes a notice which informs them that they must irrevocably agree to release their contributions under the terms of the GFDL.

The GFDL serves most of the project's needs, but it has some well-known flaws and limitations. It is not compatible with the GPL or any Creative Commons licenses. This weakness has largely prevented Wikipedia material from being mixed with other free culture content. The GFDL also imposes significant burdens on print distribution, which consequently reduces public accessibility of the content. The CC-By-SA license is functionally similar in intent but provides greater flexibility, clearer language, and fewer restrictions.

Although the case for migrating to CC-By-SA is very strong, the Wikimedia Foundation was previously unable to do it because individual Wikpedia contributors retain possession of the copyright for the content that they submit. The Wikimedia Foundation can't unilaterally migrate all of the content to an incompatible license because it doesn't have the rights to do so.

The compatibility issue made it seem impossible for Wikipedia to ever migrate to a Creative Commons license. The situation changed last year when the Free Software Foundation released an update to the GFDL. The update included language which enabled CC-By-SA migrations within a narrow time window between November 1, 2008 and August 1, 2009. The change was made specifically to enable Wikipedia and other projects in a similar position to make licensing changes.

The GFDL change has made it possible for the Wikimedia Foundation to proceed with a potential relicensing effort, but—in conformance with Wikimedia's governance policy—the organization has opted to give its contributors the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process. The Wikimedia Board of Trustees has endorsed a proposal to dual-license Wikipedia content so that it is available under both the GFDL and CC-By-SA license.

The proposal states that the most burdensome restrictions of the GFDL have not been enforced by the Wikimedia Foundation, but it acknowledges that these restrictions are problematic and detrimental to the project.

"Wikimedia is committed to the widest possible dissemination of free knowledge. While our terms of use have always allowed for lower barriers to re-use, their inconsistency with the license text leads to fear, uncertainty, and doubt about what is legal and what is not. It advantages those re-users who can afford legal advice and research over those who cannot. This is counter to Wikimedia's mission," the proposal states. "The proposed license update is designed to achieve greater interoperability and greater re-use of free knowledge world-wide in service to our vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

Voting will be open to all content contributors who have made at least 25 edits before March 15, 2009. If the proposal is supported by a majority of the voters, it will be passed to the board of trustees for approval before it is implemented. Because the board has already endorsed the proposal and it's relatively uncontroversial in nature, it seems likely that it will be implemented.

In a statement that was published on Tuesday, Wikimedia Foundation deputy director Erik Moeller provided more details about the dual-licensing process, the board's position on the issue, and the reasons why dual-licensing will be advantageous for the project and its users.

He explains that the electronic voting will be administered and overseen by Software in the Public Interest and that the vote will be tallied by a committee of selected Wikimedia volunteers. The board hopes to have the voting process finished in early May.

Listing image by R.B. Boyer