Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Joachim Durchholz <jo AT durchholz.org>]

Terry Hancock schrieb:
> INCORRECT
> NC prohibits:
>         * Any use that directly or indirectly generates revenue (NOTE:
> "revenue", not "profit" -- deferring the cost of distribution counts as
> commercial)
>         * Any use by a commercial entity, period.
>         * You are a commercial entity if you every make a profit.

That would mean that anybody who ever received money is a commercial entity.

>         * "indirectly" can mean almost anything -- knowing free software and
> using Wikipedia are of great benefit to me in "commercial" endeavors,
> like writing a book.
>         * Thus ALL USE OF SOFTWARE is commercial (at least for all practical
> purposes). You can't be using it non-commercially unless you just sit
> and look at it.

In other words, the NC license doesn't work as advertised, right?
If that's really the case, that would be quite a blow to CC's credibility.

However, I can't imagine that Lessing got that so awfully wrong, so I 
must question your interpretation.

> > > (Oh yeah, and I can sue you just for using it unchanged, too!)
> > No. The CC license always implies the right to pass on.
> > (Or did I get that wrong?)
>
> You seem to be terribly confused. NC is a USE restriction. It limits use
> to "non-commercial" activities. Unfortunately, practically everything is
> at least potentially a commercial activity. This becomes extremely true
> for utilitarian works, which almost all software is.

Still, passing on non-commercially would still be a possibility (though 
if your interpretation of NC stands, the receiver wouldn't be able to do 
anything with it).

I'm not under the impression I'm the one who's terribly confused here...

> So what's your problem with using CC-ND or CC-NC then? If source is not
> an issue, why do you want special treatment?

*sigh*

I'm SO not going to repeat that again.

Well, anyway, but this will definitely be the last time.
1) CC gives a kind-of guarantee that their licenses will work, 
world-wide. It does not give that guarantee wrt. software.
2) It specifically endorses the GPL, which is a further deterrent.
3) The normal CC licenses aren't about the kind of freedom that the FSF 
promotes, with one exception; it's unclear why CC does not offer the 
full complement, and I don't understand their policy. (Reasoning à la 
"it would be useless" doesn't count - the views and goals of the people 
who use one's work usually stretch far wider than the creator can imagine.)

> As I've point out, you are engaging in senseless word games.

OK, thanks, being insulted once in a post can be a mistake, being 
insulted twice clears some things up.

Please accept the (dis)honor of being promoted to my personal "potential 
trolls" list.

> The use of
> free to apply to the object of freedom rather than its subject is common
>  in such uses as "free speech", "free passage", "free of cost", etc.
>
> > Or it's the FSF's definition of "free", which is by definition not the 
> > case if we use anything but the GPL, so there's no point in even trying 
> > to be free in that sense.
>
> INCORRECT
>         There are many FSD "Free" licenses which are not GPL, nor even "GPL
> compatiple". Just don't want the word "GNU" on your license and don't
> care about compatibility? Fine -- use the IBM or Mozilla public licenses
> (or any of dozens of others).
>
> > > And why would you provide source for either? I have no economic
> > > incentive to contribute to your codebase either way.
> > I might get my patches applied in the next version of the software.
> > So I might get bugfixes and functional improvements earlier; that can be 
> > enough of an incentive to contribute.
>
> ND: such patches are forbidden

Nonsense. Not even distributing them separately is forbidden. You may 
not distribute the patched sources, of course, but the patches may be 
distributed. (Under German legislation, this is "quoting what's 
necessary to make your statement". Under US legislation, I'd assume it's 
under "fair use". Whatever the grounds, the practice is widespread.)

This is what's happening to qmail which has its own variation of an ND 
license.

-Jo