Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Björn Terelius <bjorn.terelius AT gmail.com>]

Rob Myers wants to abolish the ND option of all CC licenses, but I don't 
think he speaks for the entire community. Does the community wish to 
abolish the standard CC ND lisence? If so, then why was it ever created? 
Of course I can understand that those who dislike ND doesn't want to 
participate in creating an ND license for software, but the fact 
remains: CC ND exists. Why should CC endorse this for art bun not software.

As for the usefulness of an ND license for software, consider a FPS-game 
like counter-strike or whatever. If the source was distributed publicly 
it would be easy to modify the client to cheat. Anybody with any 
programming experience could create a client that automatically aim for 
the head or something. On the other hand is is extremely difficult to do 
this without source if it means reverse engineering the project.

Here's another point. Everybody who has ever used a free, open source 
program, please raise your hands. (Everybody raises their hands) Ok now 
everybody who has ever modified an open source program, raise your 
hands. (Very few does) The point is that in reality, very few people use 
the rights of modification and commercial distribution. Someone will 
remark that for many projects would not have become as good without the 
GPL or free licenses. This may be true in many cases, and I think that 
everybody should choose the best software available for their need. On 
the other hand, the FSF thinks everybody should use free software, even 
if there are better non free programs. Yet, a lot of gratis but non-free 
programs exist. See below.

I did not quite understand your response to the fact that freeware 
exists. There are many good freeware projects and they don't use any 
standardized license, because there is none. Hence the incompatibility 
exists. Adding a standardized license would make the freeware more 
useful, and could possibly persuade the developers to release it as a 
free project later.

-Bjorn Terelius


Rob Myers wrote:
> 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.
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