Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell AT gmail.com>]

On 4/25/07, Andres Guadamuz <a.guadamuz AT ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> I agree thoroughly with James. The FSF does not have a trade mark over the
> usage of the word "freedom", and I don't think that the way it's utilised in
> the CC website is either confusing or problematic.
>
> There is a small minority of people familiar with the terminology, and who
> have a very good n idea of the various movements, ideologies, licensing
> methods and licence elements involved.
>
> Having presented on FLOSS and CC to a variety of audiences, I can convey
> (anecdotally at least) that your average punter doesn't care whatsoever
> about the many competing definitions, and finds them confusing. I cannot see
> how the use of the word "rights" instead of "freedoms" will alleviate
> whatever perceived public's misconceptions. No amount of website space will
> do that job.

If there were actual interest in being accurate it would be reasonable
to talk about the freedoms that the licenses *restores*...  Each
person started with freedom, but to encourage the creation of content
our societies abridged that freedom.  A growing number of content
creators have realized that they don't need some or all of the
abridgement, so we restore some of or all the freedoms.

Of course, if you only restore only a small amount of freedom it isn't
accurate to describe a work as free... Exactly where the bar is placed
is a matter worthy of discussion, but I don't think that it really
impacts the word choice here.