Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

Björn Terelius wrote:
> I agree with Joachim Durchholz, it would be great if the Creative 
> Commons made adaptations for software. I can't understand why some of 
> you guys dislike the idea so much. 

It's not a dislike. It's a considered position based on the history of 
Free Software.

> After all, why should it be possible 
> for an artist to release their creations as ND 

It shouldn't. ND should be abolished and replaced with a Fair Use guarantee.

> but not possible for a 
> programmer based on some loosely defined "ethical principle" of open 
> source. 

The OSI have a written definition of what they think Open Source is. If 
you have an alternative definition in mind you will need to give it, as 
otherwise people will assume you mean the standard one.

Software is a tool, it is a machine. To ensure that you can use it you 
need to be able to modify it (otherwise bit-rot sets in). You cannot do 
this (usefully) without the source and the ability to modify and 
recompile it. ND is simply worthless for software.

The same is not true of art. You can make the case that freedom of 
speech ends up requiring almost identical freedoms to software, but you 
get there by a different route.

> The Creative Commons are not the same as FSF and does not have 
> to share the FSFs opinions. I think that the programmer should have the 
> freedom to choose the license he sees fit for his project, even if it 
> isn't open source. 

They have. But it is not CC's responsibility to help them reproduce 
historical mistakes that nobody else wants to touch with a bargepole.

> That a ND licence for software would "cause needless 
> division, friction and incompatibility" is simply not true. 

It is entirely true. It creates software that cannot be modified to be 
used, that cannot be combined with other software, and that does not 
work with other licenses. It is a white elephant license.

It won't make its users any extra money and it won't protect their 
reputation.

> The 
> incompatibility already exists. Just search the net for "freeware" and 
> you will find thousands of  gratis but non-free programs. 
> www.freewarehome.com alone claim to have more than 4500 programs for 
> download, each probably with its own license.

I suggest that people who think they want an ND license just use 
Microsoft's Reference License (ms-rl). Microsoft are programmers and 
have written this license to reflect their needs. So if you have the 
same needs as Microsoft, this is the license for you.

- Rob.