Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Joachim Durchholz wrote:
>>This presupposes that there are legitimate cases for ND software,  
>>which has not been established.
> 
> Probably not from RMS' point of view.
>  From my view: yes, there are situations where it does make sense.
> Think software giveaways for marketing purposes. That's a perfectly 
> legitimate thing to do (even RMS might agree with that, if I read some 
> of his more recent statements correctly), yet the FSF doesn't offer a 
> good license for that.

No, RMS would not agree with that.

He might well agree that an ND license (even NC-ND) might be appropriate
for *non*-software works. Indeed, various things he has supported,
including the "invariant sections" of the GFDL and his own published
statements are under something similar to "ND" terms. Stallman feels
that software is product with unique ethical and legal concerns that
must be treated differently from other works. He has argued on various
occasions that his free licensing concerns do not apply for other types
of works, for various reasons.

However, for software, its clear that he feels the "four freedoms" are
"ethically" essential.

I think this is a bit parochial of him, myself. I see the "four
freedoms" as a standard of quality that users should stand up for, but
that's not the same as saying that it is ethically wrong to produce
software that doesn't provide them (it's merely an inferior product, at
least from my perspective).

So, I still take exception to the use of the word "legitimate" in your
post. If you mean "legal", that's a given, but if you mean "acceptable"
to users, well... that depends on who your users are.

(In *my* opinion. In Stallman's opinion, you're being unethical no
matter whether your users accept your terms or not).

> I *would* like to see a world where there were a license for such cases. 
> It would not make the software free in the FSF sense, but with a clear 
> license that covers this case, everybody would immediately see it and 
> know what to make of it.

This is a fair enough claim, but it fails to make the case for *Creative
Commons* to create this license for you. I think there are two good
reasons NOT to:

1) Creative
        As in "licenses for *creative* works". I think the word "aesthetic" is
more accurate, myself, because utilitarian works can also be very
creative, but that's a nitpick (also, it would break the alliteration).

2) Commons
        As in "ND does not support a commons"

Arguably, CC has *already* made too many compromises about supporting a
commons. NC and ND licenses do not appear to do a very good job of it.
Some of the fringier licenses ("Developing Nations" or "Sampling" seem
almost to be backwards steps).

I think we can assume that Creative Commons' original reason for
incorporating the NC and ND license terms was to "back off" from the
"four freedoms" for software enough to encourage artistic works. The
feeling was, as I understand the problem, that the existing licenses
didn't protect things that artists felt were necessary (such as
"artistic integrity").

So, from this PoV at least, the idea of bringing NC and ND terms to
software is wrong because it isn't necessary -- the existing free
software licenses work. And CC is not just a "license factory" -- there
really is meant to be a unifying principle here.

> Currently, too many companies make up their own licenses and 
> suggestively applying labels such as "Share", "Free", or "Open", and the 
> FSF is forced to set the matter straight whenever this happens.

This is unfortunate, but your proposal does nothing to improve the
situation. Companies would still do this, as well as promoting your
proposed license as a "free" license. The FSF would then have *you* to
defend against as well as said companies.


I would suggest that if you think this is really important, that you try
to get someone who actually shares your worldview and interests to
develop such a license. Or maybe you should write it yourself and
promote it. If it succeeds, perhaps CC will provide a wrapper URL for it
as they have done with the GPL and LGPL.

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com