Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Roger Chrisman <roger AT rogerchrisman.com>]

Greg,

Thank you for that beautiful barn building analogy.

I am frustrated with the lack of understanding in projects like MIT's 
Open Courseware and other big $ funded "open" educational resources 
projects. They get big $ to do a project and then license it under 
non-commercial licensing that fails to understand and to honor that the 
freedom to prosper is important to give along with gifts and that this 
freedom to prosper empowers the gift to grow bigger and better every 
time it is given.

Your clarity about what is a marketing license and what is a gift 
license is exemplary. Non-commercial licenses are indeed marketing 
licenses that stifle the power of culture to take gifted work, grow it 
and to prosper and thrive doing so. It's a self promotional license, 
not a community promotional license.

Precedences such as MIT's OpenCourseWare non-commercial license get 
copied by people who don't understand that it will *prevent* their work 
from growing in the hands of others. What use is a gift barn if the 
receiver can't make money using it? A barn is a work tool! What use is 
a commons field if those who would use it are not allowed to prosper 
using it, widening it, improving it? Who can *afford* to maintain and 
develop such defectively licensed gifts? MIT may indeed not want others 
to develop further MIT materials but only to learn from them. This is 
MIT's unfortunate and shortsighted compromise. It need not be imitated 
by others.

When others understand.

Thank you for defending the value of the commons with your clear 
writing.

Creative Commons needs your clear writing at the top of every page about 
non-commercial licenses.

Thanks,

Roger Chrisman
http://wikigogy.org