Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:07:05 +0000
Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org> wrote:
> On 27 Nov 2005, at 22:43, wiki_tomos wrote:
> > What 2.0 and 2.5 said was that "derivative work could be
> > licensed under 3.0, and 3.0 may include further ways to
> > switching to different licenses through creating a
> > derivative."
> 
> But that relicensing under 2.0/2.5 is limited to a CC
> license or   iCommons license with the same license
> elements, that is with the BY   and SA elements, isn't it?

In legal terms, the earlier "license grant" (not the
license) "includes by reference" the later license, which
can *legally* include any terms it wants. It could convert
ALL BY-SA content to AFL or MIT licenses and allow any form
of relicensing, including proprietary.

The problem is that this would be a major *ethical*
betrayal. Whenever people use the "or any later version"
clause, they open themselves up to this kind of betrayal.
That's why you have to really trust the institution you
put that kind of trust in.

But there's no *legal* obstacle. That's why some projects
prefer not to use "or any later version" with the GPL (I
don't recall if you have an option with By-SA, I think the
language may actually be in the license itself?).

So, to clarify, are you questioning this clause on a
*legal* or *ethical* basis?  I refute the former, but the
latter is certainly debatable.


-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com