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when toggle format what by license comment
Mar 8, 2020 at 9:37 comment added NoDataDumpNoContribution @Makyen Yes, although in practical circumstances it might be hard to prove that someone didn't download a data dump or obtained a previous version from somewhere. The difficulty with only distributing as 4.0 by SE is that edits that are still under 3.0 could then not be combined anymore with content licensed under 4.0, as I understand it. And it's unrealistic that they get the approval of all people who contributed content between 2010 and 2018, some of them may even be already dead. It would only work for works where all contributors decide that they want to switch to 4.0.
Mar 7, 2020 at 21:02 comment added Makyen @Trilarion Once the author agrees to 4.0, it's SE can choose to only distribute under a 4.0 license. SO is under no obligation to continue to distribute any version which is licensed under 3.0, even if those are identical content. People who obtained it prior to the 4.0 license being agreed to by the author would still have a 3.0 licensed version (and anyone getting it from that person would also be 3.0), but all people who obtained it as a 4.0 work wouldn't have an inherent right to a 3.0 license, unless they also obtained a version originally distributed under 3.0 (e.g. an archive.org copy).
Mar 5, 2020 at 12:03 comment added NoDataDumpNoContribution @GregoryCurrie You are right. That will probably kill this idea. If the company cannot change the license of the existing content, then the users cannot do so either. Even if I would mark all my contributions to be under license X, they would still also exist under the original license given at the time of creation. The only possibility would be multiple licenses. I could additionally mark all my CC BY-SA 3.0 content to be also 4.0, but then figuring out what possible licenses modifications can have, becomes really complicated.
Mar 5, 2020 at 11:19 comment added Gregory Currie What happens when other people have edited your contribution? Either with minor modifications, or more aggressive edits. Note that they also have rights. I suppose if nobody else has touched a work of yours, it's very clear cut.
Mar 4, 2020 at 15:42 comment added amon @YaakovEllis Kinda off topic, but I really appreciate that you are taking the time to process and respond to all of these issues and concerns. It previously felt like meta feedback was piped directly to /dev/null (especially on the announcement that triggered this licensing tragedy …). So please continue what you're doing, please continue broadcasting your intent even about such smaller-scale things, and I hope that in between meta comments you also find the time to actually implement this stuff :)
Mar 4, 2020 at 11:04 comment added Yaakov Ellis StaffMod I don't know if it will make the initial release of updates (which will do things like identify the current version of each post in its timeline), but we definitely plan on adding the ability for a user to upgrade the licenses for all of their posts, as well as indicate whether or not they approve automatically upgrading post CC license version numbers in the future should the standard license for content on the site change.
Mar 4, 2020 at 9:05 comment added NoDataDumpNoContribution After they have the single contribution license tracking in place, that makes indeed sense. Maybe have two buttons, a migration button for each single content and a license migration button for all existing content.
Mar 4, 2020 at 7:51 history answered Anonymous Coward CC BY-SA 4.0