Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Kat Walsh <kat AT creativecommons.org>]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam AT benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Sarah Pearson <sarah AT creativecommons.org>
> writes:
> One of the greatest incompatibilities as I see it is the CC SA lacks the
> guarantee recipients can obtain the corresponding source to the work.
>
> In my opinion, if derivatives are expressly permitted, then the
> recipient's access to the corresponding source form of the work is
> crucial to actually exercising that permission.
>
> What is the current state of discussion to change the ShareAlike
> requirements to guarantee the recipient can actually make derivative
> works from the corresponding source?

Sarah mentions that SA isn't going to be changed, something I agreed with.

My opinion is that the source requirement in the GPL is applicable without requiring SA to address it specifically--and that the burden should be on the reuser who wishes to apply GPL to ensure that s/he can meet that requirement before applying the license to adapted material. (Leaving aside, for now, the question of just what exactly source as specified in the GPL might *be* for an SA-licensed artistic work where there isn't a canonical format for it.) If the SA licensor has not provided and is not willing/able to provide source, the fact that a reuser is permitted to apply a compatible license when adapting would not compel them to do so.

Just because a license is compatible does not mean you can always apply it--but it would not be the terms of redistribution in the licenses stopping you, but rather the practical consideration that you just do not have the source. (A similar thing is true when, for example, your national laws or company policies prohibit you from distributing adapted material under the terms of a compatible license. The licenses are still compatible.)

I *do* think it is more in line with the spirit of BY-SA if a licensor does provide the material is a format that would be considered "source" for the purposes of GPL and would encourage it,

-Kat

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