Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

Rob Myers said:
> Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:

>>GPL puts community above the individual, which is fine.
>
> It puts the *individual* first because it protects the individual's rights.
> Under the GPL, the community cannot deny the indidual the right to program. 
> Or
> indeed to sell software.
>
> The only "right" it removes is the "right" to take work from individuals and
> form a community around it that excludes those individuals.

Rob, I don't have a problem with GPL or copyleft in general.
It's a good license for what it wants to accomplish.

But I refuse to subscribe to the way proponents describe GPL as free.

It isn't.

A commons is a resource that allows a community to benefit from it
and allows an individual to benefit from it. An individual can
feed their personal livestock on a commons, and keep the benefit
to themselves.

All Rights Reserved creates a fenced in area that is owned and
controlled by an individual. The community must pay to get
access to whatever is inside the fence.

Copyleft style licenses creates a fenced in area with control
that doesn't let anyone REMOVE stuff from the area. Anyone can
access it, but no one can remove it. And any modifications you
make must remain in the controlled area.

The individual is prevented from removing stuff from the community
area. Therefore, copyleft puts community before individual.
That is not freedom.

A commons is free as in freedom. Anyone can do whatever they want
with the resources in the commons, including using it for selfish
reasons, or using it for commnity benefit.

>>But it isn't "free" the way free speech allows an individual
>>to say anything they want, including the freedom to dissent
>>against the community.
>
> Freedom of speech only allows you to dissent in speech (or writing, film,
> whatever). You can't riot or hold an armed uprising under freedom of speech,
> even although those are forms of dissent against the community. GPL allows 
> you
> to fork your own project if you don't like a given development community. It
> just doesn't allow you to go proprietary.

"it just doesn't allow"

read that last line again, and remove the "just" because that is
nothing more than subjective spin on the reality.

"it doesn't allow"

Anything that "doesn't allow" something is not free as in freedom.
See, the difference is "free speech" is free as in a commons.
Free speech allows you to create a proprietary work, all rights reserved,
that dissents against the community or government or whatever,
to hold it proprietary, and to sell copies.

Copyleft does not allow that. The "just" is an attempt to minimalize
the fact that copyleft is more restrictive that "free speech".

Your "cant shout fire in a theater" restriction applies to both
"free speech" and to "copyleft". Both have that restriction.
So both are equally free in that respect.

But while "free speech" allows proprietary books to be created,
copyleft does not allow that.

Copyleft does not allow people do to something that free speech allows.

So, copyleft is not as free as free speech.

The motto "free as in free speech, not free as in free beer" is
casting copyleft into something that it isn't. It isn't free as
in freedom. It is free as in "free to do whatever you want as long
as you don't take it out of the community"

You attmpt to minimalize these restrictions with language:

"The only right it removes"
"it just doesn't allow"

Take out the words "only" and "just" and you get facts without spin.

"the right it removes is the right to make proprietary derivatives"
"it does not allow proprietary forks"

This is not freedom. This is enforced community behaviour.

It's fine that it works that way. The license serves an
extremely useful purpose. But it isn't about putting freedom first,
because individual freedom is more restricted in copyleft than
it is in plain old-fasioned free-speech.

it's about putting community before individuals.

A commons doesn't make one more important than the other.
community or individuals can feed off a commons all the same.
A commons is free as in freedom.






-- 
Hungry for a good read? Crave science fiction?
Get a taste of "Hunger Pangs" by Greg London.
http://www.greglondon.com/hunger/