[cc-community] sample+ being retired? - was Re: is there a bug in the sample+ 1.0 license?

Nathan Kinkade nkinkade at creativecommons.org
Wed Feb 3 08:45:17 EST 2010


On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 5:49 AM, Atom Smasher <atom at smasher.org> wrote:
<snip>
> after reading the memoir (a very good read), i can see your point... but
> only when a sample license is used by itself. i see the problem not being
> the sample license's incompatibility with the core licenses; the problem
> is that it's been used as a substitute for, instead of a compliment to,
> the core licenses.
>
> so i'll propose an easy fix: keep the sample license alive (i think we
> both agree that there's a good case for it), but make it very clear that
> its use is recommended *ONLY* in combination with one or more of the core
> licenses. a few lines of text; problem solved.
>
> i've also thought about another "auxiliary license" to compliment the core
> licenses: one that waives the protection of ex post facto copyright
> extensions. is that something that's aligned with CC's goals? is anything
> like that being considered? that may also lend itself to an "auxiliary
> license" to compliment the core licenses.
>
> so i see the problem as being user education. my proposition is to help
> educate users to identify and distinguish:
>  * core licenses
>  * auxiliary licenses (sample+), to be considered in combination with core
> licenses
>  * alternative licenses (CC0), to be considered instead of core licenses
>
> of course, for most users the core licenses alone will provide more than
> enough confusion (eased, for licensors, by the license chooser) but there
> are power users too.

Any legal considerations aside, I think you have hit on a major reason
why the Sampling+ licenses are going away: "confusion."  You talk
about auxiliary and alternative licenses that may meet your use case.
However, consider how many different auxiliary, extension and
alternative licenses would be necessary to meet all the possible use
cases that may arise.  There are an unlimited number.  I think there
is a general consensus that too many licenses is a bad thing.  Better
to have a few licenses that meet *most* peoples' needs, than go
creating a bunch of extension, auxiliary and alternative licenses for
edge cases, as legitimate as they may be.  This comes to mind: you can
please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all
the time, but you can't please all of the people all the time.

Nathan



More information about the cc-community mailing list