21 May 2009, 14:50

New license for Wikipedia

In a recent vote, the active majority of Wikipedia authors voted for dual licensing for Wikipedia content: In addition to the previous GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) used by articles and other media, a new "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license" (CC-BY-SA) will also be used. The amendment will affect all Wikipedia content, as existing content is also to be re-licensed.

Over 17,000 registered Wikipedia and Wikimedia editors took part in the vote. Once the polls had closed, 75.8 per cent of voters were in favor of the license amendment, 10.5 per cent were opposed and 13.7 per cent had no opinion regarding the change. The Wikimedia Foundation Board must first give their final approval before the licensing change can go into effect. Once approved, the proposed terms of use will be posted for comment and a strategy for updating templates on affected media files will be announced. Following any final modifications, the site-wide copyright statements and terms of use will be updated on all of the English language wikis, followed by the non-English wikis.

More details about the license change can be found on the Licensing update wiki.

See also: