[cc-community] CC-BY content usable under GFDL
Greg London
email at greglondon.com
Mon May 5 19:58:46 EDT 2008
> 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?
It's conceivable. But that isn't what defines copyleft.
What defines copyleft is the idea that the work and
some subset of its derivatives are placed under the
same license as the original, and that license may
or may not have any particular restriction.
different copylefts offer different types of protection.
GNU-GPL protects against patents, DRM, tivoization,
and has a source code requirement. But it only applies
it's copyleft-ness to derivatives that are *distributed*.
The GNU-LGPL is exactly the same, exect it only applies
it's copyleftness to works which are functionally
related to the original work. compiling doesn't always
make a derivative in GNU-LGPL, but it does in GNU-GPL.
The apple open source license applies it's copyleft-ness
to *all* derivatives, distributed or not.
The CC-ShareAlike license doesn't have a patent clause
and doesn't have a source code requirement.
It was these sorts of differences I was trying to
objectively quantify in "Libre Labyrinth"
http://www.greglondon.com/libre/index.htm
> aren't we making efforts / exploring ideas
> to allow movement between essentially
> compatible Free Copyleft licenses?
The OpenHardware community would be best served by
something like the Apple license, something that
extends to all derivatives, whether distributed
or not. If there were some sort of clause that said
you can apply the Apple license, or any other copyleft
licence, then someone who wanted to abuse the community
work would create a derivative, apply the CC-SA license
instead, wouldn't have to worry about the copyleft-ness
because he wouldn't distribute the work, only silicon,
and he wouldn't have to worry about source code requirements
or any of the other restrictions in the Apple license.
Being able to choose which copyleft license you get
to apply to a derivative would be about the worst
possible thing a license could do. Just pick the weakest
license.
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