Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Wednesday 04 January 2012 17:00:41 Francesco Poli wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Jan 2012 16:22:43 -0500 Anthony wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 6:22 AM, Francesco Poli
> >
> > <invernomuto AT paranoici.org> wrote:
> > > On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:08:30 -0500 Anthony wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > >> One of the advantages of CC-BY-SA compared to GPL is that it *doesn't*
> > >> have the sometimes onerous requirement to share source.
> > >
> > > I see that as a bug, rather than a feature.
> >
> > Yes, I realize this.
> >
> > Obviously I think you're wrong.
>
> I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree, then...  :-(
>
> Anyway, I don't see why you seem to think that a clause allowing a
> CC-by-sa → GPL conversion would be harmful.
> It would just allow a work to be moved from a weaker copyleft to a
> stronger one.

Because I for one want to see BY-SA strengthened in such a way this time that 
it will be a stronger copyleft for non-code that the gpl is for non-code.
>
> Do you see the source-availability requirement as a non-free
> restriction? If you don't, you should have no problems with the
> possibility to strengthen the copyleft that protects a work...

I for one do not see a source requirement as a non-Free requirement and if we 
could ever pin down proper "source requirement" wording for non-code, I would 
suggest we add it to BY-SA if it can be done in a non-onerous way.
>
> > > When source (the preferred form of a work for making modifications to
> > > it) is not made available by the author, each recipient finds
> > > himself/herself in a position of (technical) disadvantage with respect
> > > to the author: the author has the possibility to make modifications
> > > that the recipient cannot make as easily.
> >
> > True.
> >
> > And acceptable.  Authors do not have a duty to help others make
> > modifications.
>
> I think the spirit of Free Software is that authors should make life
> for modifiers as easy as possible.

I am cool with that. I certainly want to make it as easy as I can to let 
others build on/from my stuff.
>
> > In fact, taken to its logical conclusion such a
> > requirement becomes absurd.  An author is pretty much always going to
> > have an easier time modifying his own software than others.
>
> Obviously, copyleft does not require authors to actively go around and
> help recipients to modify their works!
>
> But keeping their preferred form for making modifications secret and
> unavailable is something that is against the spirit of Free Software.
>
> The example of a book written in LaTeX is especially simple and clear.
> Fixing a minor detail (such as a typo) is extraordinary easy, if you
> have the LaTeX source code: just edit the LaTeX code and recompile!
> Trying to do the same, when all you have is the PDF file generated by
> pdflatex, is extremely unpractical: you may edit the PDF file directly
> (say, with pdfedit), but the result won't be as "clean" as the
> recompiled PDF file. Otherwise, you may reverse engineer a LaTeX code
> that is able to re-generate a PDF file similar to the original, but the
> result won't probably look consistent with the original (unless you are
> a real LaTeX guru and invest a considerable amount of time in the
> effort!).
> Hence, distributing this PDF file under the terms of the CC-by-sa
> license, without making LaTeX source available, is like saying:
> "you *may* modify it, but, good luck, if you *actually* want to do so!"

And if you never had latex yourself in the first place?
>
> [...]
>
> > If we want a less common case, what's the source for a sculpture?
> > What about that die-cast toy that I was talking about earlier?
>
> We are not talking about material objects.
> We are talking about information that may be processed by computers.

Oh but we may indeed be speaking of material objects. Now do you want to 
limit 
source requirements to digital copies only and digital source materials only?

all the best,

drew