development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

I would highly recommend avoiding a license that
is specific to an age group, such as 18 and under.
Learning and knowledge has no such boundaries,
so why constrain it with an artificial limit?
What do you then say to the 19 year old who wants
to finish school or the 40 year old who wants to
learn to read?

While the laptop program is targeting children now,
there is no reason to believe that if it is succesful
that it might be expanded to help others not in
the age group 18 and under. The problem with a license
with a project that accepts software contributions
is that once a license is chosen, it becomes very,
VERY, difficult to change the license.

For software programs, I would suggest using the
GNU-GPL, simply because you can then use existing
software with modifications to fit your hardware.
It also means that people using Linux could recieve
the OLPC software, a simulator that could run on their
desktop, and they could benefit from the software,
as well as contribute to making it better.

The people who use and contribute to the Linux project
are a vast resource for any free software project.
Using any license other than GNU-GPL may end up
excluding the very people who could help you the most
in the long run. Software is always getting bug fixes,
improvements, and changes. If you want the best chance
of allowing the community to contribute to this project
freely, start with a license that will guarantee this
from the beginning, such as GNU-GPL.

Creative Commons does not recommend its licenses
for software development. The GNU-GPL has proven
itself to be exactly the sort of license that
guarantees all the knowledge in a software project
remains freely available to anyone who wishes to learn
from it or contribute to it.

For non-software works, I'd recommend dual-licensing
the works under GNU-FDL and CC-SA.

Greg London

> Hi Everyone,
> My name is Ayo Kusamotu.I am a Nigerian Lawyer and
> also Project Lead of Creative Commons in Nigeria. I am
> also a friend of OLPC (One Lap Top Per
> Child)-laptop.media.mit.edu/.OLPC is headed by
> Nicholas Negroponte and they are making a $100 lap top
> for children to be distributed in developing nations
> for learning .
>
> In my dicuussions with Nicholas Negroponte he was very
> excited with the idea of having a licence like the
> Developing Nations Licence for Children. May be
> something that people could give to children to use as
> they like.
>
> This idea has generated heated debate in the list -
> namely that we dont need another Licence for children
> , besides - the legal issues : capacity of children in
> law was seen as a major hurdle.So others have
> suggested that what we need are tools for children.
>
> So this list is the most distinguished panel in
> education, so I want to tap on the best minds for your
> ideas and suggestions.
>
> Thanks,
> Ayo
>
>
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