development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

[David Palmer <davidpalmer AT westnet.com.au>]

On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 01:08, Downes, Stephen wrote:
> The comment about OpenOffice is interesting.
> 
> As you may know, MS is signing deals with various content providers for
> exclusive access as subscription-based resources into Office products (think
> of it as 'son-of-Smart-Tags'). This method of circumventing normal
> information distribution channels effectively gives MS control over content
> distribution (terms of which would be enforced by the MS Rights Management
> Server).
> 
> It is worthwhile to think of setting up an open system whereby Open Office
> users are able to tap directly into (CC and equivalent licensed) RSS feeds
> distributing free content. For example, a direct connection between
> OpenOffice and Wikipedia would be most useful. 
> 
> It is going to be important for those who promote open access to think of
> the content infrastructure as an interconnected network extending from the
> author directly through to the user's desktop applications. Anything less,
> and it will be controlled and monopolized.
> 
> -- Stephen
> 
> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
> Stephen Downes ~ E-Learning Group ~ National Research Council Canada
>           stephen AT downes.ca -~- http://www.downes.ca
> For free daily news and information about e-learning and related
> technology, visit OLDaily at http://www.downes.ca/news
> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
> 
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ms. Heather Ford [mailto:hford AT stanford.edu]
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 7:39 AM
> > To: development of an education license or license option for Creative
> > Commons
> > Subject: Re: [cc-education] A Voice in The Void.
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks for clearing that up, David. I couldn't agree with you 
> > more about 
> > being more collaborative about the process - and I'd love to 
> > work with 
> > people on doing something really practical to advance 
> > creative commons 
> > licensing. In fact, I'm going to be presenting a paper on the 
> > relevance of 
> > creative commons for the African public domain in Cape Town 
> > in January at 
> > the Idlelo conference (http://idlelo.uwc.ac.za) and one of 
> > the main things 
> > that I'll be stressing is that creative commons is as much about the 
> > philosophy of people working together collaboratively as a 
> > community with 
> > shared goals, as it is about providing a practical alternative to 
> > copyright. We often forget about this when we talk about open 
> > content - 
> > but I believe that it's an important part of opening up the 
> > 'workings', 
> > the nuts and bolts and the 'source code' of the content-generation 
> > process. 
> > 
> > I was actually thinking of building a collaboration space for 
> > educators 
> > who are interested in using Creative Commons licenses in building 
> > curricula collaboratively. It would have the facility to link people 
> > together across particular themes (kind of like a Friendster for 
> > curriculum developers) and really develop our ability to 
> > collectively wade 
> > through and filter the mass of open content that is being 
> > made available 
> > into practical, current information bytes using blogs, wikis and 
> > collaborative project management similar to that used by 
> > projects such as  
> > www.openoffice.org . You'll notice that openoffice.org has 
> > opened up their 
> > *entire* development process - including marketing - to the 
> > international 
> > public, and does a similar thing to what you suggested by 
> > having contact 
> > nodes in each region responsible for marketing and press liaison. 
> > 
> > I'd be very willing to set up a collaborative space for cc education 
> > people to start developing these materials - if it is 
> > generally agreed 
> > that it's a good idea and if people are willing to comment on how it 
> > should look.
> > 
> > Best,
> > 
> > Heather.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 4 PM 12/2/2003, you wrote:
> > On Wed, 2003-12-03 at 05:34, Heather Ford wrote:
> > > >
> > > >Well, yes, I understand what you are saying,
> > > 
> > > <heather> Sorry, but I don't understand? What can you do 
> > better than 
> > most?
> > > 
> > > >and I think that I could do
> > > >it better than most, but how the project is presented has 
> > a lot to do
> > > >with how it is accepted.
> > > >So I thought that pooling resources/ideas, and then 
> > jointly working out
> > > >an effective approach would garner the greater acceptance 
> > level in the
> > > >marketplace.
> > > >Regards,
> > > >
> > > >David.
> > > >
> > Hello Heather,
> > 
> > At one stage I was one of the more prominant promotors in Australia.
> > 
> > As to the second part, 'pooling of ideas', etc.,
> > (1) I am a firm believer in the open source community-based 
> > way of doing
> > things;
> > (2) I don't have the arrogance to make decisions on a 
> > situation where I
> > am not the only personality involved.
> > Regards,
> > 
> > David.
> > 
Hello,

I am very much involved with the Debian community, and therefore
familiar with OpenOffice.org.
With the kind of content involved in these two posts I took the liberty
of onforwarding a copy to their developers' mailing list.
It should reach a cast of thousands within hours.
Working example.

You have some nice ideas, Heather.
I have recently assisted Christiane Aschenfeldt with setting up the New
Zealand aspect of the CC internationalization programme.
I think that the cultural potential there with the Maori, Tongan,
Samoan, and other tribal mentality groups has real potential with
respect to open source and CC. 
I know that they have taught me a lot.
You may well have the same potential in South Africa.

Hello Stephen.
How's Nietzsche going? 
Regards,

David.