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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] by-nc-sa draft and GPL compatibility of by-sa

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Christopher Allan Webber <cwebber AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: arne_bab AT web.de
  • Cc: Development of Creative Commons licenses <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] by-nc-sa draft and GPL compatibility of by-sa
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:44:01 -0500

Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab AT web.de> writes:

> My specific point is to already take care about GPL compatibility
> while drafting nc-sa.

Ah, I see. I misread this initially; I thought you were talking about
how BY-NC-SA was being drafted as the first license on which the other
licenses will be subsequently drafted from.

I don't think that GPL compatibility will be considered for BY-NC-SA;
BY-NC-SA is not a free license, and there's little incentive to get
things to work there. I think this would be simply too problematic for
the following reasons:

- While BY-SA and the GPL are similar in intentions, BY-NC-SA and the
GPL are not because of the NC provision. One-way compatibility could
only happen due to explicit grant of licensing under the GPL's terms,
and it would mean "giving up" the NC provision once passed over to
the GPL... some of us might not miss the NC provision, but it would
be against the intentions of people selecting NC, and we don't want
to do that.

- It's a lot of effort, both in legal considerations, politically, and
community-wise, to work on interoperability issues. An explicit
grant to have a nonfree license bridge over to a free one would
send the wrong message and provoke confusion. BY-NC-SA was never on
the table as in terms of an interoperability conversation, and I
think even if it were legally possible, it is politically impossible,
and would send the wrong message.

I think people who are concerned about such interoperability should
encourage people to adopt BY-SA as opposed to BY-NC-SA... that is a much
simpler solution.

- Chris




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