[cc-licenses] [Commons-l] Requirements for a strong copyleft license

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Sun Dec 2 15:49:14 EST 2007


On Sunday 02 December 2007 08:57:38 Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 02/12/2007, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If a visual artist doesn't want copyleft for images they should just
> > use CC-BY (or better, 'PD').
> >
> > The purpose of copyleft is to help expand the pool of free content
> > with a tit-for-tat mechanism.  'Weak copyleft'  simply isn't
> > interesting in terms of its ability to achieve this goal.
>
> Is "weak copyleft" not comparable to the LGPL? LGPL appears to have a
> place; why not "weak copyleft"?

Here you can find the FSF's stated reasoning behind the lgpl and when it 
should be used over when to use the gpl instead:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

Is there some similar strategic reasoning that we can see to benefit from both 
in the same way?

"Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software 
developers need to make advantages for each other."

How can we make advantages for each other using strong and weak copyright 
licenses?
>
> > The question of "does anyone here want a weak copyleft license" is
> > just the far more interesting one...
> >
> > I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for
> > media which isn't strong.  Does anyone here disagree?
>
> At the risk of being stoned... yeah.
> I just don't consider an article that uses a photograph of mine as
> illustration to be a a derivative of my work.
> I don't want an article, blog or book author to have to license their
> whole text under CC-BY-SA just because they use my image.
> HOWEVER, I do want them to be obliged to make explicit the license of
> my work, that is offer it to others under the same conditions. My
> work, not theirs. That is how I think "weak copyleft" differs from
> CC-BY or PD.

Whereas I want to have the same freedoms with their copyrighted work which 
incorporates mine as they enjoy with mine. This means a Free license at least 
unless there is some strategic reason that I can see for the community or for 
myself.
>
> So "weak copyleft", if we are talking about the same thing, suits me well.
>
> regards,
> Brianna

all the best,

drew




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