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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] CC vs GPL: how to ensure compatibility and compliance

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • To: Javier Candeira <javier AT candeira.com>, Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] CC vs GPL: how to ensure compatibility and compliance
  • Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:31:43 -0400

On Saturday 29 September 2007 02:10 am, Javier Candeira wrote:
> Some time ago we discussed CC vs GPL in this list. Rob Myers convinced me
> that there was no problem in software using CC-licensed resources, as they
> would not be linked. If I understand it correctly, his argument was along
> the lines that a GPL videogame with CC graphics and music was not linking
> software, and could be considered "mere aggregation",

OK, so it might depend on the design of the system right?

If you had a GPL game engine that played content according to a certain API
or
format. So the game consists of an executable engine say and a data file say.
And as long as the data file was in a certain format then the engine would
play it... Then the data file could non-GPL compatible.

BUT. If it was all one big executable...?

Consider the former may be along the lines of using the gimp to process all
rights reserved graphics or some of the Free video editing software working
with all rights reserved video...

> the same way GPL,
> non-GPL and even non-free programs can be distributed in the same physical
> medium.

>
> (Rob, please excuse me if I am paraphrasing you wrong, I can't find your
> message in the archive.)
>
> This article deals with how to ensure compatibility and compliance between
> GPL and "freedomdefined-compliant" CC licenses.
>
> http://www.linux.com/feature/119212
>
> I have only read the article cursorily, but I have already found one
> glaring
>
> mistake:
> > The remaining licenses, CC-BY-SA and CC-BY, stick only to elements that
> > satisfy the free software definition. But to be GPL-compatible, a license
> > must also be a copyleft license -- meaning the license ensures that once
> > a work is made available to the public, it cannot be taken away again.
> > CC-BY makes no such requirement, thus it is not copyleft and is
> > incompatible with the GPL.
>
> (of course that's silly, many non-copyleft licenses such as BSD are
> GPL-compatible precisely by dint of being non-copyleft. It is the OTHER
> non-GPL copyleft licenses which are mostly non GPL-compatible).

Indeed, super wrong... but crazy statements like that seem to crop up over
and
over in the area of Free works.
>
> Maybe there are other issues that you the list may want to raise regarding
> Creative Commons licensing.
>
> Regards,
>
> Javier

all the best,

drew





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