Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Luis Villa" <luis AT tieguy.org>]

On 8/28/06, Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:
> > For my particular usage, I could see a business model
> > (a way of making a living) established on copylefting
> > works under a Creative Commons license like the GNU GPL,
> > ... where one would take advantage of other's reluctance
> > to license their own works under the same license.
>
> That might be an advantage for you, but such a license
> would be harmful to the gift economy that created the
> work in the first place.

Depends on the gift economy. While I would likely not contribute on
such terms, MySQL, Sleepycat, and some others have built both
successful businesses and successful communities on this very premise.
I'm sure some excellent literature remains to be written on what
conditions are necessary for such a plan to succeed as both business
and self-sustaining community.

Luis