Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Henri Sivonen wrote:
>  However, I believe the answer can be "Yes" if the derivative works
>  are marked as derivative versions that weren't published by the
>  original author. The problem there is that CC wants to keep CC-by-sa
>  relatively simple and if you look at the GSFDL draft for the
>  measures of protecting the reputation of the original author while
>  still allowing derivative works without case-by-case permissions, the
>  choreography is rather detailed.

You know it occurs to me that people familiar with free-licensing and 
the culture it engenders tend to already be aware of the fact that a 
derivative work under a free-license may not reflect its original 
author's views (or skill level, etc).  Thus, for us, no reputation 
damage to the author is implied just because of the present state of the 
work.

This reminds me of the difference between library and web research -- 
you have to expect the reader to be a bit more sophisticated in sorting 
out good sources from bad (and it's just a natural property of the 
medium that you have to do that more often).

I wonder if it would be smarter to approach this from the point of view 
of a general disclaimer: "The views expressed in this work may not be 
those of the original author due to later derivations, since this 
license permits modifications including fundamental changes to the 
subject matter, position, and opinions stated" (or something like 
that).  The process for verifying "endorsements" could perhaps be left 
much less formal than in the GFDL/GSFDL.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Terry

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