[cc-community] Access to source material - CC-BY

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Tue Mar 10 07:58:04 EDT 2009


On Tuesday 10 March 2009 00:24:47 Gautam John wrote:
> Hello:
>
> We are a non-profit children's book publishing house based in
> Bangalore, India and have previously released a few books under a CC -
> license:
>
> http://blog.prathambooks.org/2008/11/on-joining-commons.html
>
> However, internally we have now been discussing moving all our books
> to a CC-BY license for a number of reasons. A question that has arisen
> is whether we then need to provide access to the 'source' files of our
> books and if so, in what format? Would it suffice if the source files
> were in PDF? Or would it suffice if we made available the source files
> on a platform [1] that allowed for the creation of derivative works.
>
> Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

The cc licenses do not require source as far as I know. So legally, I would 
say no although ianal and tinla. I would say that the Free ethos suggests 
source be provided where possible and in a non-encumbered, editable format.

My take is it is best to provide source that can be used with Free software. 
Really, a Free toolchain from top to bottom if possible. If we want to get 
the full benefits of Freedom in any case.

If you work in the Free space properly, you can get people who work to promote 
you because they appreciate what you are doing.

Something I recently posted at identi.ca is somewhat appropriate:

!ccmusic if you use NC to keep the money for yourself you can pay me to 
promote you if you use a Free license I can provide gratis promotion

http://identi.ca/notice/2698065

Short due to the character limit.

I am sure that I am not the only person in this world looking to promote Free 
works that I find acceptable when I come upon them.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best,
>
> Gautam
>
> [1] www.cnx.org

all the best,

drew




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