CC-BY license.

[Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@math.umd.edu>]

Hello,

I'm writing about the free/non-free status of the Creative Commons 
Attribution license, version 2.0 :

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

Last year this list discussed the version 1.0 license, and concluded that 
it was non-free :

http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/dls-006-ccby

Version 2.0 looks almost the same to me, so I assume that the concerns 
remain. I would be glad to see the CC-BY license inch a little closer 
towards "free" status.

The Debian-legal page above includes this justification (among others) for 
the non-free status:

   It appears (though it's slightly unclear) that credit to original 
   author(s) must be as prominently displayed, and in the same location, 
   as credit to any other author. This restricts modification (DFSG §3).

This seems to be based on this email from Jeremy Hankins:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/03/msg00279.html

Where Jeremy wrote:

   This says you can't put your own name in big, bold letters on the 
   cover while putting the original author's name in a footnote. It also 
   requires that you preserve the original title along with the original 
   author's name.  I'd say this is non-free.  Not because it also requires 
   preserving the title (that I see no problem with), but because it (and 
   the original author) must be as prominently displayed as the new 
   title/author.


The license doesn't say that the name must be prominent. It says that it 
must be "at least as prominent" as other credit. Last week I asked the 
cc-community list if I could just have an appendix titled "contributors" 
and put everyone's names on it. They said that should be fine.


Now, back to this page:

http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/dls-006-ccby

The third justification refers to "the trademark notice on the license's 
website where it is not obvious if this notice is part of the license."


I'm pretty sure the trademarrk notice is not part of the license. What 
would you suggest the CC team do to make this sufficiently obvious? I will 
relay your suggestion to the CC team. They're a nice bunch. Who knows? 
They might just make the alteration.

Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera          | I don't want it perfect,
Join OOoAuthors today!  | I want it Tuesday.
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