“As the previous feature on open content noted, the need for an
appropriate license was felt from the earliest days. Strangely, it
was not Richard Stallman who filled this gap: even though the GNU
General Public License dates back to 1984, it was only in 2000 that
the corresponding GNU Free Documentation License was created. As a
result, the honor for the creation of the first formal non-software
open license goes to David Wiley.“In the summer of 1998, Wiley had joined the graduate program in
Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young
University, where he began doctoral work on ‘learning
objects’–small-scale, reusable computer-based educational
materials designed to be used in a variety of settings…”