[cc-community] CC or GPL source code that creates art

Javier Candeira javier at candeira.com
Wed Mar 18 02:51:05 EDT 2009


2009/3/18 Tom Sparks <tom_a_sparks at yahoo.com.au>:
> the community is revisiting logo because of logo data amplification
> capability when combined with the L-system especially when it comes to
> computer/console games
>
> what about SVG  / X3D / VRML?

Good point. What about literate programs in Haskell or Knuth's CWEB,
where 90% of the text of the program is just English (or any other
human language) and only a few lines are actually executable? After
all, as Abelson and Sussman point out in their Structure and
Interpretation of Computer Programs [1], "programs must be written for
people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute". Or
what about computer fonts? After all, they are geometric shapes, never
mind that under copyright law they are protected as computer
programs...

I would say in all of those cases a Free Software License is
applicable. Using the GPL you can have the advantage of Creative
Commons metadata as well, but any other CC license (for instance
cc-by-sa, which is equivalent in its intentions and even compatible
with the GPL) is inappropiate.

The reason is that CC licenses do not contemplate cases, such as
source code obfuscation or software patents, that are not an issue in
the case of photographs or literary works, but may be so in the case
of the examples you pose, even if some of them are close to being
"just" structured data. But for Logo, which if I understand correctly
is a close relative of Lisp and is Turing-complete, so my advice is to
use a Free Software license, not a Creative Commons license.

Regards,

Javier Candeira

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-7.html


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