[cc-community] CC-BY content usable under GFDL

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Mon May 5 08:47:29 EDT 2008


On Sunday 04 May 2008 18:47:51 Terry Hancock wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > Copyleft licenses can have this issue. Does BY-SA allow the addition of
> > extra terms? Somehow I doub't it. I will have to check again.
>
> It wouldn't be a copyleft if it did.

To go all esoteric for a moment, isn't it conceivable to have a copyleft with 
the option to modify in ways that do not negate the four freedoms? In fact, 
isn't the GPL itself sort of an example of this (in itself) where you can put 
in or leave out the or any later version bit? Also, aren't we making 
efforts / exploring ideas  to allow movement between essentially compatible 
Free Copyleft licenses?
>
> Saying that "CC-By is compatible with GPL" is equivalent to making the
> claim that "the provisions that the GPL makes for attribution are at
> least sufficient to satisfy the terms of CC-By".
>
> Unfortunately, both licenses leave sufficient room for interpretation
> that there exist interpretations which are incompatible. However, IMHO,
> those are fringe interpretations and the statement is true for the most
> likely interpretations of both licenses, so the odds of someone
> successfully claiming that CC-By has been violated by GPL conversion are
>  extremely slim.
>
> Or so it seems to me.

I agree. I was simply pointing out that it might not be a safe assumption for 
all possible attribution licenses mixing with all possible copyleft licenses.
>
> Cheers,
> Terry
>
> (Who is not a lawyer, etc).

all the best,

drew




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