Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

> It's really hair splitting about terminology,
> but since some people make subtle differences,
> it's important to get the language right to avoid
> exactly this kind of discussion.

This little tangent started when I posted a two line message saying:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2007-April/005650.html
+ You may also want to mention that licenses like
+ the GPL also protect the work from Software Patents,
+ which isn't in CC-SA.

To which you replied
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2007-April/005664.html
~ This applies only to GPL, and there only GPL3,
~ and there's no definitive wording for GPL3 yet.
~ So we'd probably not want to mention anything right now.

Which was flat out wrong. No subtle differences. Just wrong.

You then make a rather long post to the effect of:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2007-April/005671.html

~ 1) Software cannot be protected from patents.
~ Protection from patents is something that can
~ be granted to persons or companies, not to software.
~ (This is slightly hair-splitting, but saying
~ "the software is protected" doesn't make sure
~ whether it's the licensor or the licensee who's
~ protected.)

Which is completely irrelevant.
If I release some shareware under NC-ND,
and you try to apply a software patent to it
and redistribute my work, you've violated
ND by modifying my code, and you've probably
violated NC, because the presence of patents
usually means someone is doing something
primarily for commercial benefit.


>> Worse thing that happens is they say
>> "GPL has some patent protection"
>> and then someone manages to find a loophole in
>> the GPL that somehow allows them to use a patent
>> to make the work nonFree. And at that point, no
>> one is going to point fingers at CC and say
>> "Why didn't you warn me that the GPL patent protection
>> wasn't perfect!"
>
> That's exactly the scenario that it had in mind.
> And finger-pointing is exactly what will happen in such a case.

Alice walks into a hardware store where Bob works.
She tells Bob that she wants an XRay because she
thinks she may have a hairline fracture in her arm.
Bob tells her that she should go to a hospital for
that because that's what hospitals are for and that
hardware stores really aren't the place to do medical
treatments.

Alice goes to the hospital. They do an xray.
find a fracture, put her in a cast and sling,
do their best effort to treat her.

Someone comes along and mugs Alice in the hospital
parking lot. Runs off with her purse, all her money,
her cell phone, her digital camera, and her mp3 player.

Alice goes back to the hardware store, points her
finger at Bob, and screams "You did this to me
because you said I should go to the hospital!"

That's your exact scenario with the labels changed
from "CC" to "Hardware store" and from "GPL" to "Hospital".
And you're saying  finger-pointing is exactly what will
happen in such a case.

???