Soft licenses -- compatible?

Some sites use a soft license statement instead of firm
statements such 
as CC-by-sa or GFDL, as if to tie folks into the open
content ideas, 
the open freedoms, without strictly tying folks into the
exact wording 
of any one particular license. Is this help or hurt their
cause?

Example (this one is from WikiTeach's "terms and
conditions" page)  
http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/wikiteach
/wikiteachmgr/action/tc/

      "Intellectual Property
      "By posting content to WikiTeach, you are
granting a share-alike 
full copyleft license on that content. A copyleft license
uses 
copyright law in order to ensure that every person who
receives a copy 
or derived version of a work can use, modify, and also
redistribute 
both the work, and derived versions of the work. A full
copyleft 
license imposes the requirement that any freedom that is
granted 
regarding the original work or its copies, must be granted
on exactly 
the same terms in any derived work. This allows maximum
freedom for all 
users. Each lesson plan includes a copyleft statement that
must be 
included in all copies and resulting works. This provides a
mechanism 
to preserve the copyleft freedoms for subsequent users. -in
other 
words, you give the next person the right to copy or change
your 
content in any way-you are giving it away to the world out
of the 
goodness of your heart and it belongs to everyone and no
one."

WikiTeach has no other legalese style license statement,
only the above.

(I feel I can post that license here as long as you
understand that it's 
terms apply to itself and my posting of it here.)

* Are these soft license statements a good idea?

* Do they help solve the problem of incompatibility that
hard licenses 
such as CC-by-sa and GFDL licenses have?


Thanks

-- 
Roger Chrisman           
http://Wikigogy.org    -  
  free resources
                 for teachers of English as a second or
foreign language
                      ...using CC-by-sa 2.5
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Roger Chrisman wrote:
>       "By posting content to WikiTeach, you are
granting a share-alike 
> full copyleft license on that content. A copyleft
license uses 
> copyright law in order to ensure that every person who
receives a copy 
> or derived version of a work can use, modify, and also
redistribute 
> both the work, and derived versions of the work. A full
copyleft 
> license imposes the requirement that any freedom that
is granted 
> regarding the original work or its copies, must be
granted on exactly 
> the same terms in any derived work. This allows maximum
freedom for all 
> users. Each lesson plan includes a copyleft statement
that must be 
> included in all copies and resulting works. This
provides a mechanism 
> to preserve the copyleft freedoms for subsequent users.
-in other 
> words, you give the next person the right to copy or
change your 
> content in any way-you are giving it away to the world
out of the 
> goodness of your heart and it belongs to everyone and
no one."
> 
> WikiTeach has no other legalese style license
statement, only the above.

IANAL, but ISTM that this is a policy statement for a
distribution of
separate content with media-compatible (but not necessarily
derivative-compatible) licensing.

IOW, it compares to the Debian Free Software Guidelines
which determine
whether a "package" can be included in Debian.

The implication would be that each item submitted would be
expected to
have its own license terms, but that only copyleft licenses
would be
accepted. Since the items are separate, their copylefts
aren't binding
on each other, so multiple copyleft licenses can co-exist on
the server.

However, it would, IMHO be smarter to have a more precise
policy. And I
haven't explored the site myself.

???

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancockAnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpac
eworks.com

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