Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-education - [cc-education] Moving ahead

cc-education AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Wiley <dw2 AT opencontent.org>
  • To: development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons <cc-education AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [cc-education] Moving ahead
  • Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:47:35 -0800

Stephen Downes wrote:

> And lest this email be misunderstood, I would like to make
> it clear that in my conversations with David I have come to
> appreciate his knowledge, charity and sense of committment.
> Our understanding and our desires for this field are virtually
> identical, and we have more that unites us than that separates
> us. I think that nobody shares a greater desire to come to a
> mutual understanding than David and myself, and I think we
> both understand well enough the dangers of internecene
> conflict and take great care to stress our common goals,
> however this particular disagreement may be resolved.

Everyone,

I want to echo this sentiment. Stephen's heart is in the right place. (At least I hope it is, because it's in the same place mine is.) We're arguing so pationately because we so strongly believe in what we're trying to accomplish. Let me try to recap where we are, how we got here, and where we need to go.

Almost a year ago Creative Commons announced several new license projects - Sampling, Developing Nations, and Education - to compliment their existing portfolio of licenses - Public Domain dedication, By, By-SA, By-NC-SA, and other permutations, and Founder's Copyright. Larry and Glenn believed that an Education license was a good idea. So did I. So did several other people we talked to.

Stephen has requested that a process be put on the table for how license development would proceed. There has been a process on a webpage (hopefully that is good enough) since at least June 2, 2003 according to the Wayback Machine at archive.org. This same process which guides the development of the education license is still available online at http://creativecommons.org/discuss for all to see. This is the process CC has identified for new license development, and this is the process we are following. As you will have seen on the webpage, Public Discussion is the core of the process.

Stephen says "Let's see a process for making this decision put on
the table. A process that ensures that people with a stake in the issue have a bearing on the outcome." The last eight months of public discussion have had a significant effect on the license. Look at the original draft Kevin Rothman and I hammered out and presented (according to the CC process):

https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-education/2003-June/000001.html

This draft relied completely on the notion of an "educational institution" as outlined in the US Copyright Act and elaborated by Nimmer. We tried very hard to stretch the notion but you will see that this draft relies completely on affiliation with an institution to determine whether a person may make use of materials licensed under the then-proposed cc.edu.

Now fast-forward eight months. A new draft is available (I'm linking to the one with options): https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-education/2004-February/000162.html which takes a completely different approach to defining the class of individuals who would qualify. Instead of relying on "institutional affiliation," it attempts to grant permissions based on the "type of use" of a resource an individual wants to make. I posit that this represents a significant improvement to the license, and one that came about due to the public discussion called for in the CC license development process.

Stephen further states that he would like "A process that amounts to something more than just 'Creative Commons doing what it wants.'" Larry, Glenn, myself, and as I understand their recent posts, the majority of list participants are in favor of taking the next step with a draft of the education license. I realize there are some on the list who, like Stephen, honestly and genuinely believe that this is a conterproductive move. I actually respect that perspective. But the majority of the list want to see the license efforts move forward, as does CC. So we will cautiously go forward, into *beta*, with a draft license.

I can think of nothing more democratic than moving the cc.edu draft into public beta where *more* people can provide broader feedback on the draft. Only 11 people have participated in the discussion around the new draft (participation being generously defined as making at least one post). We desparately need the eyeballs of real users on the draft. Let's face it -- each of us on this list are probably CC-By people if not public domain people. We're not the target audience of cc.edu.

Heather has graciously offered to lead a research effort to understand broader user perceptions of the beta license which will shape the direction of the final version of the license. I hope those who have so actively voiced their *opinions* (including me) about what users will think of the draft license will join Heather in an empirical investigation of users *actually* think of the beta license.

The beta license is *not* the final version! The license will not be finalized until we gather and deal with comments from the beta period (e.g., http://creativecommons.org/license/sampling). In other words, members of this august list, everyone who still cares several months from now is invited back to relive this experience. =)

The question we should spend the next 24 hours discussing (since our deadline is the end of the day tomorrow) is - which draft should go into beta? With all respect to those who feel that we should not, the time is past to discuss whether we should or shouldn't. We need to now start talking about how we will. I sincerely hope that Stephen and others who believe we are making a mistake will hang around long enough to help us gather and interpret data, and empirically determine what the effects of the license will be.

I believe that the option-enabled draft linked above is the right draft to move into beta because it provides the broadest range of choice to users (does this make me "pro-choice?" =). Heather has also argued for this version in her most recent letter. Does anyone feel that the no-option license should be the one which goes into beta? If so, why?

David




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page