Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Francesco Poli <invernomuto AT paranoici.org>]

On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:25:28 +0100 Rob Myers wrote:

> On 04/07/2012 10:42 PM, Francesco Poli wrote:
> >
> > I am already asking for a one-way conversion clause from CC-by-sa to
> > GPL and from CC-by to zlib.
> 
> Apache 2 is the FSF's current recommendation for a permissive license.

The Apache license version 2.0 [1] is a good recommendation for many cases
(so I agree with the FSF that it is a recommendable choice), but I
would not consider it as a simple permissive non-copyleft license:
first of all, it is GPLv3-compatible, but GPLv2-incompatible [2], which is
really unfortunate from my point of view (I prefer GPLv2 over GPLv3);
moreover, it is fairly long and not too simple.

[1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2

I personally recommend the Expat/MIT license [3][4], when copyleft is
not desired. The 3-clause BSD license [5][6], the 2-clause BSD license,
and the zlib license [7][8] are equally good choices, even though some
of them are less known...

[3] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt
[4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Expat
[5] http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license
[6] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD
[7] http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib_license.html
[8] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ZLib

> Would this be acceptable, or would its mention of patents clash with BY?

I still prefer suggesting to introduce a one-way conversion clause from
CC-by to zlib, for the reasons outlined above.

> 
> Out of interest, why zlib rather than MIT, which was the FSF's previous 
> recommendation iirc? Zlib's no-misrepresentation clause seems less 
> useful than MIT's waiver of warranties, although more in-keeping with 
> BY's moral rights handling.

I chose to suggest the zlib license, since I think that its
no-misrepresentation clause may please those who are concerned with
attribution issues. In other words, I feel that it is more in line with
CC-by attribution provisions.

I hope this clarifies. 


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