All text edits to Wikipedia fall under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License (CC BY-SA) with the copyright being retained by the original author; as of August 2009[update], most articles/edits are also dual-licensed under the GFDL. This is a guide for using multiple licensing of one's contributions made to Wikipedia so that they are in the public domain or licensed under alternative licenses in addition to the CC BY-SA license (and GFDL, often). A number of users have chosen to release their contributions under some other license, or even to release their contributions into the public domain.
Dual-licensing under CC BY-SA and GFDL on Wikipedia is required by the Terms of Use for all content that is the sole creation of the contributor. Additional licenses are not required or suggested by Wikipedia, but some users—for a variety of ideological or other reasons—prefer to release their contributions under a wider range of terms.