Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Tuesday 24 April 2007 03:53 am, Björn Terelius wrote:
>
> 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.

Well, it may not be the exact situation you propose, but we may have decent 
experimental results soon:

http://secondlife.com/developers/opensource/licenses
>
> 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. 

You left out an important question and drew too strong a conclusion.

Everyone who has ever used more than one distribution or everyone who has 
ever 
used any distribution other than Yggdrasil raise your hand. (A whole bunch of 
hands go up.) You make use of the right of commercial distribution when you 
choose to get your wares from a different party that better suits your needs, 
not just when you distribute commercially yourself. It gets you out of vendor 
lock in.
>
> 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. 

I think that's his point. Get them to agree on one and then ask CC to bless 
it.

When people who like Free Software see the GPL, BSD, MIT, etc, they see the 
one they like as good for their use and use it. Why haven't the non-Free 
freeware guys managed to come up with on in all these years?


> 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.

So, what more do you need than ND gives you?
>
> -Bjorn Terelius

all the best,

drew
>
> 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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>
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-- 
(da idea man)