Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell AT gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Kuno Woudt <kuno AT frob.nl> wrote:
> Wouldn't someone always be able to claim this?  Effectively making a
> source-requirement clause a no-op, because a publisher can always claim
> that whatever they distributed is the preferred form.

No,  because it would not be difficult to demonstrate that what they 
distributed
was no a preferred form— e.g. by showing via discovery that its not a form 
they
use for modification themselves.  They'd lose in court, and they know this— so
they comply.

In practice this has worked out okay in the GPL world. There are grey areas
where it's ineffective— where someone who wanted to game it could do so,
but in practice if you're required to provide something other than the final
fixed distribution file then the form you use for modification yourself is the
next easiest thing and so that is what is usually distributed.