From Lessig I learned that Wikipedia has wisely accepted a proposal from the Free Software Foundation that will permit Wikipedia to migrate from GNU Free Documentation License to a CreativeCommons Share Alike license.

The differences are too complex to properly address in a brief blog. Even so, as the Wikipedia board noted, such relicensing would have an overarching benefit -- a stronger network effect.

Digital entrepreneurs like me understand almost too well the value of consistent licensing to network effects. "Almost too well" because licensing perils often bedevil our days and can gnaw at our sleep as we pursue the network effects that are central to the Web's current economic dynamism.

The Wikipedia board resolution is well-stated and says in part:

Whereas a long period of discussion and negotiation between and amongst the Free Software Foundation, Creative Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation and others has produced a proposal supported by both the FSF and Creative Commons to modify the Free Documentation License in such a fashion as to allow the possibility for the Wikimedia Foundation to migrate the projects to CC-BY-SA, and a step toward relicensing under CC.

Lessig underlined the importance of celebrating what Wikipedia did without confusing it with an actual relicensing under CCSA.

The YouTube video of the announcement is not confusing on that point:

I look forward to the day, if it comes, when the potential for relicensing is realized.