Development of Creative Commons licenses

[rob AT robmyers.org]

Quoting adam hyde <adam AT xs4all.nl>:

> well, in my opinion CC is a mess. I'm sorry to have to say it, but its
> just too confusing to anyone wanting to use material to have a dozen
> licenses to contend with, with no information about what licenses are
> compatible internally or external to the CC license family.

Internally:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#I_used_part_of_a_Creative_Commons-licensed_work.2C_which_Creative_Commons_license_can_I_relicense_my_work_under.3F

or more prettily:

http://creativecommons.org.tw/static/choose/license/licwizeng

Externally:

http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses

> The GPL is 1 license, and can be applied to non-software:
> "any work of any nature that can be copyrighted can be copylefted with
> the GNU GPL."
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonsoftware-copyleft.html

You must be able to identify source code. This is not always possible.

The GPL, as a software license, ignores copyright issues that effect  
e.g. music and film. The CC licenses provide better protection for  
non-software works.

> I wish the CC would have made the CC-GPL wrapper and stopped there.   
> It would have made the world a much better place for freedom of   
> content.

As Stallman says, "content" is the wrong word to use.

> As for the FDL. It is not a free license,

Even Debian agree that is is free as long as you don't use invariant  
sections. This seems to work just fine for Wikipedia.

> and the FSF should drop it. I
> can't believe they get away with saying it is 'free' when it has clauses
> intended to protect publishers form losing their publishing business
> model.:
> "Meanwhile, the GFDL has clauses that help publishers of free manuals
> make a profit from selling copies"
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhyNotGPLForManuals

Yes I don't like invariant sections at all. The SFDL draft gets rid of  
them though.

> Also, if someone can explain to me what the difference is between
> documentation and software I will buy them that elusive free beer.

With all due respect to Knuth, one you read and the other you execute.

- Rob.