Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab AT web.de>]

Am Montag, 1. April 2013, 17:54:07 schrieb Francesco Poli:
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:50:28 -0600 Carlos Solís wrote:
> 
> > 
> > One of the topics commented for the discussion of the CC 4.0 licenses is
> > the option to give a one-way compatibility between the CC-By-SA and the
> > GPL. At a first glance, it looks like a great idea,
> 
> I am still convinced that it is a great idea...

Same for me, as I actually feel the pain of having to choose which pool of 
free licensed works to use: Either GPL (Battle for Wesnoth, WTacticts, …) or 
by-sa (Ryzoom, lots of music, …).

> > which would allow more
> > intercompatibility between free licenses, but there is an issue with the
> > GPL's requirement to provide complete corresponding source code.
> 
> I believe this is an issue with the way a number of CC-licensed works
> are released, independently of the presence or absence of a
> conversion-to-GPL clause.

I think it isn’t a problem in reality: If there is no source, then whatever 
you have is the preferred for for making modifications *for the project which 
uses the works under GPL* (because its developers have no other sources).

> > Secondly, as it should be well-known, most works under CC licenses
> > (especially audiovisual works) don't release the source code,
> 
> As I said above, I think this is an issue that should be cured
> independently from any license-conversion mechanism.

Also it is no real issue, because if there is no source, then what you get 
becomes the source for you.

> > Also, the GPL requires that the assets and project files are "in a
> > format that is publicly documented (and with an implementation available
> > to the public in source code form), and must require no special password
> > or key for unpacking, reading or copying". This outlaws releasing the
> > project if it was made with non-free software (like Photoshop, Word, Sony
> > Vegas and many more).

As long as there is a free program which can read the files, this might be 
enough to count as documentation and implementation.

I can read Photoshop with Gim, Word with Libre Office and so on.

> > This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any compatibility with the GPL,
> > but it must be limited to works that already comply with the GPL's
> > requirement for source code (here meaning full assets, full instructions
> > for editing the assets in their final form, and all files under a free
> > format).
> 
> As I said above, it may be worth noting it explicitly, but I think that
> the conversion to GPL would automatically be ineffective without
> source. 

Actually if the files cannot be modified at all (by no one), then they likely 
comply with the GPL, too. Only if the relicensing person has the capability 
to edit them and he or she does not provide that capability to others, then 
the GPL would be breached.
(but this is just my interpretation, and I am not a lawyer)


I see another problem, though: 


Section 1d defines a compatible license as: 

    Creative Commons Compatible License means a license listed at 
http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses and approved by Creative 
Commons as essentially the equivalent of this Public License. 

Section 3b1 states: 

     You may only license Your Copyright and Similar Rights in Your 
contributions to the Adapted Material under a Creative Commons license, this 
version or later, with the same License Elements, or under a Creative Commons 
Compatible License 

And http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses states: 

    when a license explicitly permits the relicensing of derivatives of works 
made available under that license under a particular Creative Commons license.


These three points together make it impossible to use the GPL, because the 
GPL cannot allow source code to be relicensed under cc by-sa, because that 
would void any protection of the sharealike clause (for programs source code 
availability is *required* for *technical reasons* to have real sharealike).


Even stronger, Section 3b1 seems to implicate that I am not allowed to take a 
cc by-sa work and add some stuff which I license under a more permissive 
license (i.e. cc by). Suggestion for that: “You may only license Your 
Copyright and Similar Rights in Your contributions to the Adapted Material 
under a Creative Commons license, this version or later, with the same or 
fewer License Restrictions and the same or more License Permissions,


Suggestion for GPL compatibility: Name the GPLv3 or later explicitely in the 
License: It is the dominant sharealike license for free software, and it is 
actually the only case I see where the missing compatibility is a problem in 
existing projects. Naming the license on an external site provides no 
security for the users, because when they use a cc by-sa work under GPL, they 
would have to also take a snapshot of the site with compatible licenses to 
prove that they were allowed to use the works when they included them.

And with GPL-compatibility, you automatically get compatibility to other free 
software licenses: If the work is GPL-compatible, you can use it with a cc 
by-sa work, too. If it is not GPL-compatible, then it will very likely not be 
a candidate for cc by-sa compatibility anyway. This applies, because with 
GPLv3 much efford was expended to make it compatible with other free software 
licenses. And all that efford could be leveraged by creativecommons by adding 
explicit GPL-compatibility.


Best wishes,
Arne
--
Konstruktive Kritik: 

- http://draketo.de/licht/krude-ideen/konstruktive-kritik

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