complete press contact list for creative commons

[Glenn Otis Brown <glenn AT creativecommons.org>]

press release
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Attachment: CC-GPL_Brazil.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT FIRST TO ADOPT NEW “CC-GPL”

 

The Brazilian Committee for the Implementation of Free Software will 
release code under the Free Software Foundation’s General Public 
License, with Creative Commons providing new human- and 
machine-readable packaging

 

Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, and Tokyo, JAPAN — December 2, 2003 —The 
government of Brazil today announced its adoption of the CC-GPL, an 
innovation on the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) General Public 
License, for the release of publicly funded software. Brazil is the 
first adopter of the new CC-GPL, which combines the proven utility and 
popularity of the GPL with Creative Commons’ innovative user interface.

 

“Brazil’s adoption of the CC-GPL is extremely significant,” said 
Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ chairman and professor of law at 
Stanford University, from Tokyo, where Creative Commons is presenting 
its projects in Japan this week. “Brazil has recognized that code 
produced and funded by the people should be made available to the 
people, and it has pioneered a tool that provides the best of both the 
Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons.”

 

“Brazilian government adoption of the GPL is an enormous step forward 
in the cause of software freedom,” said Professor Eben Moglen of 
Columbia Law School and General Counsel of the Free Software 
Foundation. “We welcome the chance to work together with Creative 
Commons to make the GNU GPL even more attractive to governments, which 
are recognizing that the principle of ‘share and share alike’ is the 
most efficient, most equitable, and most pro-development licensing 
strategy for software the public pays to create or to acquire.”

 

The first piece of software Brazil will release under the CC-GPL is 
TerraCrime 1.0, which analyzes and creates statistical reports on 
criminal activity in a particular geographic area, cross-referencing 
the data with other variables such as population, time of the incident, 
etc. The software was developed by the Laboratorio de Estatistica 
Espacial (LESTE — Spacial Statistics Laboratory) of the the Federal 
University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and by the Divisao de Processamento 
de Imagens (DPI — Image Processing Division) of the Instituto Nacional 
de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE — National Institute of Space Research).

 
With the CC-GPL, Creative Commons has applied its three-layer user 
interface to the FSF’s classic software license. First is the Commons 
Deed, a plain-language summary of the GPL’s key terms. Next is the 
Legal Code, the full license in all its detail — in this case, the 
General Public License, provided in both English and a Portuguese 
translation by the Brazilian government. Third is Creative Commons’ 
metadata, a machine-readable expression of the license, so that users 
can search for and sort CC-GPL-licensed code by terms of use.

 

Lessig said Creative Commons and the FSF will begin offering the CC-GPL 
to the general public shortly.

 

 

 

About the Brazilian Committee for the Implementation of Free Source 
Software

 

The Information Technology Institute (ITI - Instituto de Tecnologia da 
Informacao) is an administrative entity connected directly with the 
Presidency of the Republic in Brazil. It has appointed a Committee for 
the Implementation of Free Software, and it is responsible for steering 
the free software policy in Brazil.

 

About the Free Software Foundation (FSF)

 

FSF is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project, an 
effort launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating 
system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive 
acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"; it is pronounced “guh-noo.”) Variants of 
the GNU operating system which use the kernel Linux are now widely 
deployed; though these systems are often referred to as “Linux,” they 
are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems. The Foundation also 
develops, publishes, and secures compliance with the GNU General Public 
License (GNU GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), 
which are the world's most widely used free software licenses.

 

For more, see <http://gnu.org>.

 

About Creative Commons

 

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use 
of

intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by 
the

generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative 
Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, 
and inspiration with the school's Center for Internet and Society.

 

For general information, visit <http://creativecommons.org>.

 

 

 

Contact

 

Ronaldo Lemos

FGV Law School (Rio de Janeiro)

rlemos AT fgv.br

 

Professor Eben Moglen

Columbia Law School (New York)

+1.212.854.8382 (tel)

moglen AT fsf.org

 

Glenn Otis Brown

Executive Director, Creative Commons (Palo Alto)

+1.650.723.7572 (tel)

glenn AT creativecommons.org