Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

Joachim Durchholz jo at durchholz.org  wrote:
> However, I do think that GPL and LGPL can be improved upon.

er, OK. license forking is a hobby for some folks.

> The GPL is Attribution/Derivative/Share-Alike,
> the LGPL is Attribution/Derivative.
> There's no option for Noncommercial or No-Derivative.

NC and ND? In a software license?
Just use All Rights Reserved.
Explained more at the bottom of this email.

> all cc.org would have to do would be a broader
> definition of Derivative, namely that the licensor
> would have to give out all the means to actually
> produce a derivative works as far has he has them.
> That should cover source code, patent rights, keys,
> whatever.

Hm. So, you want NC and ND in a software license
so that CC would define Derivative, so derivative
licenses would require everythign needed to make
a derivative, and that would cover source code,
patents, keys, etc.

?

> Just imagine that people wouldn't be forced to roll
> their own licenses because the GPL agenda doesn't fit
> the constraints  under which they can make their
> software Open Source.

Uh, you said you want a NonCommercial and NoDerivative
license. Neither are Open Source.

My experience around open source and other licensing
lists is that a lot of times when someone comes in and
says we need a new license, it often is shown that the
person who made the suggestion doesn't understand some
aspect of the licenses that already exist, which is
understandable, since the legalese can be tricky sometimes,
or they don't understand how Open Source works, which
is understandable, because there are a lot of
Religious Arguments given in defense of Open Source
and a lot of Religious Arguments in defense of non-Open
licenses.

NoDerivatives and NonCommercial licenses are,
in my opinion, small potatoes. There is the
All Rights Reserved license and then there are
a number of truly FLOSS licenses. In between
are licenses which do not make a large difference.

Sure, the most commonly adopted license from CC
is NonCommercial-Something-Something, but that doesn't
mean using the license made any actual difference
to the poeple who used NC instead of just sticking
with All Rights Reserved.

NC and ND, in my unofficial opinion, are highly overrated.

ND allows the original work to be passed around without
modification. NC allows derivatives to be made, but can't
be passed around for money. Put them together, and you can't
make changes, and you can't make money. About all that's left
is that the license allows a fan club to pass around original
copies for free.

(sarcasm)Wow.(\sarcasm)

In the age of the internet and electronic copies of works,
there is nothing that NC-ND gives you that you couldn't just
as easily accomplish by making the work All Rights Reserved
and posting it on your website for free downloads.

They are functionally equivalent.

Rather than talk in generalities, perhaps you could help
me understand your intentions with the licenses by explaining
what, exactly, it is you're trying to do?

Don't worry about the licenses, just list what works
you have, how they're getting around in the world,
and what you want to allow people to do and prohibit them
from doing.

Then we can see how far from All Rights Reserved or FLOSS
you are.

Greg