Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Mia Garlick wrote:
> i think the amended wording actually makes it clear that CC can only  
> approve a license that allows reciprocality. consequently, that  
> timeline isn't wholly accurate — CC would not take the first step of  
> declaring compatibility with a license that didn't already have  
> compatibility in it.

Taken at face value, this is either untrue or unfair.

Either CC will only permit conversion if the other party acts *first*,
in which case CC is not playing fair with the other party, OR

Actually there will be some grace period between the two announcements.

What will this period be? Months? Days? Minutes? Seconds?

Maybe so short it doesn't matter, but if one party reneges on an
agreement -- or just delays, there could be some bad politics.

That raises some cases around what happens during these kinds of
transitions. What if a license is listed, then de-listed? Was it legal
to convert a work during the time the license was liste? Does it then
become illegal when it is removed?

I think you have to realize that, considering the *existing* politics
between CC, FSF, and Debian -- not to mention the extreme variation in
professionalism between different free content license stewards, it's
entirely reasonable to expect issues like this will eventually arise.

Could be very sticky, and it's better to have decided how to handle it
in advance.

Cheers,
Terry


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