Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Henri Sivonen <hsivonen AT iki.fi>]

The CC FAQ recommends the GFDL for software documentation, but gives no 
rationale for the recommendation. 
http://creativecommons.org/faq#faq_entry_3647

The issue was raised on this list in December 2003. At that time, the 
rationale given was
> - The GFDL is specifically tailored for software documentation
> - It already has a substantial following in that domain
> - CC doesn't want to compete with the FSF
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2003-December/000211.html

I think the rationale given is not particularly good.
- The GFDL seems to be tailored for book-length works--not for typical 
Web page-length docs.
- The following enjoyed by the GFDL is questionable. The GFDL has less 
chance becoming free in the DFSG sense than CC-by and CC-by-sa. Also, 
OpenOffice.org and the Mozilla Foundation have chosen the CC camp over 
the GFDL camp.
- It seems to me that non-competition is the real reason.

I think the FAQ readers would benefit if the issue was discussed more 
profoundly without non-competition considerations.

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen AT iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/