Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Gunnar Wolf <gwolf AT gwolf.org>]

Francesco Poli dijo [Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 11:19:13PM +0100]:
> The definition of source is flexible enough to cope with this scenario.
> 
> If a recipient is not able or not willing to use LaTeX in order to
> modify the source, he/she may take the work in some other form (in PDF
> format, for instance), possibly convert it into another form, and
> modify it in that other form.
> At *that* point, the source for that particular modified version of the
> work, is no longer LaTeX code, since, for *that modified version*, the
> preferred form for making further modifications is really the other
> format. This is the actual source for the *modified version* of the
> work, while the source for the *original work* is still LaTeX code.

Francesco, we (programmers) are often blinded with what we label as
"obvious". But insisting that all things have an identifiable source,
where creation is such a rich and diverse thing, is way too
limitng. Of course, we can invent a proper source for just about
anything — That reminds me (and I hope this won't drag us into
religious discussions) on the time I wanted to learn more about the
Jewish religion (having I been born in a non-religious Jewish
family). After some weeks attending halajic law lessons, I could only
see the Law and its Interpretations as a way to twist God's words to
make a fool out of him. Needless to say, I'm not a religious person
;-)

So, lets try not to apply religion to licensing. We cannot assume any
piece of work is available in a digital format. Lets just recognize
the GPL and (a subset of) the CC licenses aim at the same freedoms,
but for fundamentally different types of content. And we *can* mix
them, as long as we keep a boundary between them!