Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Michael Tiemann <tiemann AT redhat.com>]

On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 01:38 +0000, Emerson Clarke wrote:
> Drew,
> 
> I "freely" admit to being confused, i wouldnt have started this
> discussion if i wasnt, so thanks for your input...
> 
> > There is no non-commercial use clause in the license. The whole license is
> > designed to prevent the software licensed under it from being used as
> > non-free software under the terms of the license. Commercial is fine,
> > non-libre is not.
> 
> Ok, so heres the bit i don't get.  The GPL is designed to propagate
> and protect the notion of free software by forcing derivative software
> to share the same license.

Correct.

> Surely this means that people got togeather and decided that it wasnt
> enough to simply expect people to contribute back to the community,
> rather they needed gentle encouragement, or a firm push in the way of
> the GPL.

That is not why I started writing GPL software back in 1987.  I started
writing GPL software because in 1986, after putting heart and soul into
a software project, I watched the results of that project lie fallow
because the people for whom I developed the software claimed "they were
not advanced enough to use the software" and yet, as proprietary
software, I was forbidden to either work on it as my own or to find some
people (not the original funding companies) who were sufficiently
advanced.  I felt terrible to have lost such work.

When I read the GPL, I realized that if I wrote GPL software, *I* was
the one who could be assured that *my* freedoms would be protected.  It
was I who could pour heart and soul into writing a C++ compiler (GNU C+
+) and know that nobody could layer code on top of it in such a way as
to prevent *me* from incorporating or rejecting that code in some later
version.

I was not the Lord High Pooh-bah who was seeking to impose a moral
vision on some lowly new developer.  I was a lowly developer who found
comfort and inspiration in a license that promised that I, myself, would
never be deprived the fruits of my labor.

> There must be some form of reasoning similar to this behind it or it
> would not have the propagating terms which it does.

I have offered an alternative explanation that, I believe, explains why
tens of thousands of other developers have joined the movement.

> Personally i think the assumption is wrong, and i dont think that
> forced compliance with any license helps open source.  It can only
> diminish its uptake.  And i also disagree with the notion that people
> will not willingly contribute code unless such a license exists.   In
> fact i doubt there are very many open source projects at all which
> exist soley becuase of the propagation clauses in the GPL.

You are correct to argue against your incorrect assumption, but wrong to
use that weak explanatory device to conclude that the GPL does not have
significant benefits which explain its extraordinary popularity among
developers and also the extraordinary success of projects that exist
under the GPL.

> Thats not generally the kindof motivation which software developers
> use to spend hundreds of hours developing code which they will
> essentially give away.
> 
> So yes i am confused, and i dont understand how the GPL enables freedom at 
> all.

Hopefully I have explained my own reasons.

> True freedom comes when you let go completely, and that can only come
> when you have no license restrictions.

For me, no.  I would not want to write software which would allow
another party to make modifications, put them into the market, and then
deprive me of the benefit of their work after having derived great
benefit from mine.

> I get what your saying about it not really being a commercial use
> restriction, but then why does it not extend to all software developed
> in all contexts.  Why are companies allowed to develop software using
> GPL licensed code behind closed doors and never contribute anything
> back to the community whilst they clearly make millions from it.  How
> does this support the notion of "libre" ?

What people do in the privacy of their own homes is not my business.  In
my view (which predates Google), what companies do in the privacy of
their own datacenters is also not my business.

M