<quote who="Evan Prodromou" date="2005-03-27 12:01:55 -0500">
> On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 17:27 -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> > I've actually gone over an earlier draft of this text with a
> > representative of CC and have been having conversations on and off
> > about potential fixes to the licenses. I'd love to have some part
> > in the discussions.
>
> I'd like to include you, too. I think our message will be clearer if
> it's understood that we're all on Team Debian. If some of us are
> talking to one group at CC, and you're saying something different to
> another group, I think that's going to send mixed messages.
Well, I was talking to Cory Doctorow and it was some point last
year. I think, at this point, he's not even working for CC anymore. We
went over the points in an earlier draft so I don't think there was a
different point being represented.
> It's also not clear at all that Creative Commons drafted any of its
> licenses with the explicit intent that works available under the
> license be DFSG-free.
Yes. They know about us and it's certainly a nice-to-have on their
list but I know nobody sat down with the DFSG, their licenses, and a
fine tooth comb to make sure everything was worked out. :)
> I don't think we can read any of the problem areas and say, "...but
> since we know that they were aiming to have this license be applied
> to Free Software, we can assume that they're just being clumsy in
> what they're saying."
I agree.
> All that aside, I would hate for the _language_ of the summary to
> cast aspersions on Creative Commons or the licenses. I know that
> there are a lot of loaded terms ("free" and "non-free" being two
> main culprits) that may sound unfair. I don't want to alienate
> anyone unnecessarily.
In the case of content (i.e., "non-software") licenses, this can be
particularly problematic since the license authors may not be familiar
with a lot of free software terminology that we take for granted.
> My wife says about debian-legal, "It sounds like you are the white
> hat hackers of Free Software licenses. You find the security holes
> in the licenses before the bad guys do." I thought that this was a
> pretty good analogy. People get real mad at white hats, too. It's
> not nice to be told that your software has a bug, nor that your
> license does, but it's a necessary function.
Absolutely. As I said to Andrew, I think it also helps to remember
that this isn't the same as source code and the the nature of bugs is
somewhat different. It's, for lack of a better word,
fuzzier. Contracts are interpreted by people and, ultimately, by
people who are judges and things like reasonable expectations, intent,
and good/bad faith that don't make sense in the source code metaphor
are central aspects in law and licensing. I think we are sometimes
guilty of giving these less weight than we should.
Regards,
Mako
--
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako@debian.org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/
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