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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] open source non commercial license

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Mia Garlick <mia AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] open source non commercial license
  • Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 11:31:25 -0800

personally i think there is also another problem with shared source licenses. as i understand it, a shared source license says: you may look at the source code but you may not use it or may only use it in limited circumstances. given copyright infringement is proven by a plaintiff demonstrating access and substantial similarity, it would seem incredibly easy — if a licensee ever develops code that is similar to the shared sourced licensed code (for any project), for a plaintiff to prove copyright infringement because the defendant most certainly has had access...thus, any litigation would hinge on substantial similarity and involve quite a lot of back and forth arguing over whether parts of the code were similar and/or if they are, whether those parts are dictated by function or are protectable expression...great for the lawyers engaged to argue the case but not so great for coders...

On Feb 5, 2007, at 11:21 AM, Michael Tiemann wrote:

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 18:47 +0000, Emerson Clarke wrote:
Dana,

Thanks, i was actually looking at the microsoft licenses this morning.
But as you suggested, they do not go down well with the open source
community.

The problem with the Microsoft licenses is not that they come from
Microsoft. It's that Microsoft has not submitted the licenses to the
Open Source Initiative's license approval process, so they have not be
discussed, so they cannot be approved by the OSI board, and therefore
they are not OSI-approved licenses. If and when Microsoft submits a
license to the process, they will get the same fair hearing that any
other submission would receive, and the invitation to do so remains
open. Until then, the open source community (or at least this open
source community member) will take a wait-and-see approach.

Michael Tiemann
President, Open Source Initiative


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