Wikipedia Selects CC License

As a result of a community vote (reported last by OEN), Wikipedia will now switch its license from the GNU Free Documentation License to CC-BY-SA. Wikimedia reports that 75.8% of the community voted in favor of the measure. A number of sites have covered this story including: Slashdot, Creative Commons, Stephen’s Web, and Open Access News. From the user “tepples” at Slashdot:

Like the GNU Free Documentation License, the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license is a free, copyleft license designed for works other than computer programs. It just lacks some of the practical problems that come with the GNU FDL, which was designed specifically for software manuals that run dozens of pages long. Individual encyclopedia articles are much shorter than that, and the ability to incorporate the license by reference is a better match for Wikimedia Foundation’s uses. But the Creative Commons licenses have some of their own practical problems, such as requiring distributors to remove an upstream author’s credit upon request.