Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Friday 23 June 2006 11:08 pm, Greg London wrote:
> > Terry Hancock wrote:
> > Friend Phil has just replied to me off-list to say,
> > basically, 'yes he did'
>
> My posts on this thread consist of the following:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-June/003754.html
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-June/003755.html
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-June/003765.html
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-June/003769.html
>
> I've read through them all just now and none of them
> say anything about Phil's character.

Ignoring the personal issues for a bit, and assuming for the time being that 
he is well meaning, he and I have also been kicking some ideas around off 
list.

I think that with the right agreements in place, you could design a setup 
where the docs behaved like BY-SA on wiki and BY-ND off wiki while preventing 
the "wiki owner" from having any advantage over the other contributors and 
also giving insurance were the wiki to go "off net."

One thing I think will have to be given up to do this is the right to private 
modifications which the GPL is designed to allow. I was looking for the page 
which discusses  the reasoning behind this but could not find it with a quick 
search. (Can anyone give the link?) I think this would be a demotivator for 
me.

The second thing is wondering if there is any real chance of finding out 
about 
people making these "intranet derivatives" without having to take draconian 
measures...
>
> All my comments were of the variety "if you want to do X,
> then you'll need to do Y" or "If you do A, then that
> allows you to do B down the road". The only directed comments
> were "don't kid yourself that this (CC-ND) is Free", which
> I stand by. CC-ND doesn't have anything to do with freedom,
> though it may be used to make the work free/zero cost.
>
> > he also asserted that the case for
> > free-copyleft versus proprietary-assignment was not proven.
>
> Well, if a single author wishes to use All Rights Reserved
> as a way to do what he thinks is best for the work, that's
> his choice. If Phil wishes to use All Rights Reserved on
> his work, that's his choice. If he wishes to have contributers
> assign copyright to their labor to him, that is also his
> choice to make that demand, and it's the contributers's choice
> to accept or reject that demand. And if Phil is fine with
> the response his demand gets, that's his choice as well too.
> It's his work, it's his perogative, it's his license.
> He can do whatever he wants.
>
> But if he wants to bandy about the term "freedom" and "sharing"
> just because he put a CC-ND license on the work, and say as
> much in a public space, then I'll point out just how out to
> lunch his vocabulary is. If he calls that an attack on his
> character, then I'll call him Humpty Dumpty, just so that
> I can actually be guilty of the thing I'm being accused of
> and still be true. Freedom and Sharing have specific meanings
> in the FLOSS community and for someone to come in and tell
> me that they're going to Share a work and protect its freedom
> by using CC-ND, there is misuse of vocabulary that needs
> be pointed out. A word doesn't mean exactly what Phil wants
> it to mean here. Freedom and Sharing have been defined by
> the FLOSS community to have specific meanings.
>
> > It's such an obvious point, but there really ought to be a paper on
> > it somewhere.
>
> It isn't on paper most likely because this is a problem of
> misusing vocabulary. Free and Sharing have specific meanings
> and Phil wants to redefine them to mean something else.
>
> The thing is that Phil may very well be intent on doing
> what's best for the work, even to his own detriment.
> CC-ND with a contributer agreement assigning rights
> to the contributions to Phil may very well end up
> be good for his project.
>
> The problem is that Phil seems to focused on himself
> and his project, and he knows that he intends to do
> what is best for his project, I am looking at it from
> a system's point of view.
>
> Bill Gates tells me he's got this great project and
> he wants to make sure all additions to the project
> are shared amongst everyone, so he puts the project
> under CC-ND and then requires all contributers assign
> copyright to him.
>
> That system requires trusting Phil or trusting Bill
> to do the right thing for the project to succeed.
>
> On the other hand, if Bill Gates started some project
> and put the work under GNU-GPL or CC-SA, then the
> system is automatically safe because trust isn't
> required for it to succeed. I talk about this a bit
> in Bounty Hunters when I talk about cake-cutting
> algorithms and how some algorithms are stable
> and some are not.
>
> http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/bountyhunters.htm#1_3_Cake_Cutting
>
> Alice and Bob want to cut a cake evenly.
> They get Trustworthy Trent to do the honors.
> But the problem is Trent can become biased
> for one reason or another.
>
> On the other hand, the simple algorithm of
> having Alice cut the cake into two pieces,
> and letting Bob choose which piece he gets,
> works regardless of Alice's or Bob's or even
> Trent's intents.
>
> Phil's approach requires that people trust Phil
> to do the right thing. For his project, that may
> be fine. But from outside potential contributers,
> who know nothing of Phil, who don't know if he's
> a Bill Gates or a Lawful Good Paladin, their decision
> to contribute to a system that requires trusting
> Phil will be tempered by the fact that they don't
> know him enough to know if he is trustable.
>
> If this sort of system worked, then Phil could
> just as well release the works All Rights Reserved
> and say "trust me", and get contributions.
> But most contributers won't know Phil, so they
> won't know if they can trust him to do what's best
> for the work, rather than what's best for Phil,
> and may be disinclined to contribute.
>
> Using a CC-SA or GNU-GPl license changes the system
> so that trust isn't required. The license commits
> everyone to certain rules and so one person cannot
> hold themselves at an advantage above the community.
>
> >From a system's design, it's far more stable than
>
> requiring trust in an unknown individual.
>
> It has nothing to do with whether or not Phil can
> be trusted. From the point of view of designing the
> system, a system that doesn't require Trustworthy
> Trent to "do the right thing" is a stable system,
> it will produce good results even if the individuals
> are mean, nasty, double-crossing backstabbers, and even
> if they are Lawful Good Paladins.
>
> A system that requires Trent only produces good results
> if the person fulfilling the role of Trent is a Lawful
> Good Paladin, AND if everyone knows that person well enough
> to know that he is a Lawful Good Paladin.

I do like the cake cutting algorithm. Even that is no perfect solution in all 
situation though. Imagine Bob just can't seem to cut the cace in half no 
matter how hard he tries. He comes fairly close bet never quite gets it. 
Alice, on the other hand comes very close, much closer than Bob. Now Alice 
and Bob agreed, before this fact came to light, that they would take turns 
cutting the cakes in question and using this algorithm to pick their pieces.

Poor Bob.

(Just a fun mental musing. I doubt it has much value to the discussion at 
hand.)
>
> So, a paper about it (of sorts) has been written....
>
> Greg

all the best,

drew
-- 
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/145261
Record a song and you might win $1,000.00
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145