Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Kat Walsh <kat AT creativecommons.org>]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 4:10 PM, Nicolas Suzor <nic AT suzor.net> wrote:

> Is there some way to evaluate the size of the compatibility problem at
> the moment? It strikes me that the answers to many of the specific
> questions depend significantly on the urgency of addressing the problem.
>
> Now that Wikipedia has successfully transitioned, do we have any data
> about how much demand there is for compatibility? Can we tell, for
> example, whether there are many users who want to release a single
> derivative work combining GPL/CC BY-SA code and assets, as opposed to
> using separate licences to different files within a package?

That's a good question. In part the answer is no, we don't really have
a way to evaluate it. It's been a request we've seen from multiple
sources in multiple communities, but without good information on how
large the scope of the problem is. (We have a few use cases outlined
on the wiki, as mentioned by Isaac downthread, but it's not a complete
list, or an estimate of the scope.)

To some degree, the answer to that question is that we don't know
because people are treating other licenses as compatible even though
they technically aren't. The ones who aren't just going ahead are
generally more legally conservative, concerned about legal risk if all
the details aren't just right. But I haven't heard about people who
aren't using these similarly (but not compatibly) licensed works
together because they are worried about wronging the licensors of
these works.

In part the scope doesn't matter, if there is a problem: in principle,
we should be working to reduce friction where we know it exists
unnecessarily, to prevent problems from developing (or worsening).

But in part this is a question I want to turn around and ask others
here, who may have a better picture (especially those who are
currently publishing or reusing works under other potentially-
compatible licenses): what is your view of the scope of this
problem?

-Kat

-- 
Kat Walsh, Counsel, Creative Commons
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