Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Tuesday 01 February 2005 10:05 am, Greg London wrote:
> Rob Myers said:
> > The sad thing is that BSD provides a fig-leaf for "just giving something
> > away" rather than "keeping it free". AdTI were going to try to spin BSD
> > to be a "real" Free Software license and the GPL as a "hybrid". Thank
> > goodness for Growklaw.
>
> I don't have a problem with BSD-style licenses.
>
> I'm starting to get how much I hate the language of "free", though.
>
> Copyleft is not best described as "free".
> It is best described as "community".
> A copyleft license guarantees that the work and
> all its derivatives remain in the community.
>
> BSD and Public Domain are best described as a "Commons".
> And a commons is something that anyone can feed off of
> for personal gain or community benefit.
>
> It's too late to change the "branding" of Creative Commons,
> but I hate their choice of name. It's like copyleft describing
> itself as "free". Both pay little heed to the meaning of the
> language they selected.
>
> Stallman choose "free" because it's a great rallying cry
> to talk about "free speech, not free beer", to talk about
> the right to code, etc. But GPL is really a community license.
> No privatization is allowed. That freedom is removed.
>
> GPL puts community above the individual, which is fine.
> I don't have a problem with the GNU licenses.
>
> 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.
>
> Copyleft ==> community first
> Public Domain ==> commons everyone first
> All rights reserved ==> individual first
>
> Greg

Are you sure you have your terminology right? Are you speaking from a US 
point 
of view, a british commonwealth pov, or some other pov?

I read a book within the last few years by Edward Rutherfurd called The 
Forest 
(he also wrote Sarum, London, and Russka which I had read before - I liked 
them all) and it deals some with the laws of the commons for a forest in 
England. IIRC, the ideas do not match with your thoughts. That is why I ask.

all the best,

drew