Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Mike Linksvayer <ml AT gondwanaland.com>]

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 12:40, Christopher Allan Webber
<cwebber AT creativecommons.org> wrote:
> I've since been accused of being a FUD slinger against source
> requirements and that what I really ought to be doing is suggesting that
> people use the GPL for works where the author intends to enforce source
> requirement.  Good points.  Oh well. :)

Yes, IMO:

- There is considerably more of a gentle degradation from most useful
to not-at-all useful format for many cultural works than for software;
brief thing I wrote on this awhile back at
http://p2pfoundation.net/Free_Culture_in_Relation_to_Software_Freedom#1._Obvious_Software.2C_Ubiquitous_Culture
and somewhat relatedly (and very strongly relevant to overall thread)
I also recommend Rob Myers' posts
http://robmyers.org/weblog/2005/10/allographic-art-and-freedom.html
and http://robmyers.org/weblog/2007/08/26/cultural-sources/

- Adding a source requirement to any of the existing CC licenses in my
view would change their spirit considerably and is probably not
appropriate*

- There is a great need for more of a practice of sharing ~sources in
free culture and nearby, short recent rant at
https://ffkp.se/en/2012/03/27/interview-with-mike-linksvayer-cc/ (q3)

- For better or worse license conditions are a central way
people/communities express their desires (at least complementarily if
not more powerfully, more people/communities/institutions etc could
simply require works in modifiable forms; in words anyway the
http://freedomdefined.org and http://opendefinition.org already claim
a work not available in such a form is non-free)

- Incompatible pools should be avoided, people tending the commons
should not replicate copyright's atomism unless there is a really
amazingly compelling reason to do so

- There's already a dominant source-requiring public license, which
can be used for any sort of work, the GPL; use that if you really want
to legally require modifiable forms

> (I'm still actually a bit unclear on how far the source requirement in
> GPL'ed works goes for cultural works in practice...)

Through practice. Which, I believe is what adam (Hyde, of FLOSS
Manuals) does -- many of FM books are under GPL. This seems like a
good place to practice practice, as the preferred modifiable forms are
pretty obvious. I believe
http://www.booki.cc/a-webpage-is-a-book/free-content/ is his current
writing on the matter. If I were adam I'd want some form of one-way BY
and BY-SA compatibility with GPL rather than adding source
requirements to CC licenses.*

Mike

* Yes I realize the tension