The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it will be translating the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and its other projects to use the Creative Commons By-sa 4.0 license. This license will replace the current Creative Commons by-SA 3.0 license, which was itself a replacement for the GNU FDL (FREE Documentation License) originally used by Wikimedia in 2009.
The decision to renew the license aims to expand the compatibility of Wikipedia with other open content, enabling the transfer of contents under the BY-SA 4.0 SS license. This move was made to align with the evolving landscape of open content licenses.
As part of the license renewal, Wikimedia projects will make changes to adopt the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 as the main license. All new edits of Wikipedia materials will be distributed under this license, while older materials will continue to be governed by the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The support for the CC BY-SA 4.0 license will allow for the direct transfer of contents to Wikipedia that are available only under this license, including documents published by international organizations and governments of certain countries.
Compared to the Creative Commons 3.0 version, the CC BY-SA 4.0 license offers improved compatibility with other licenses, adaptations to adhere to different countries’ legislation, simplified usage for states, clarification on the application of exclusive database rights, and enhanced clarity and readability of the license text. Furthermore, it introduces automatic restoration of rights that were withdrawn due to license violations. Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the work can be distributed, edited, changed, and used in projects, including commercial ones, as long as the original authorship is credited and derivative works are shared under a similar license.