The upcoming Creative Commons 3.0 license suite is being tailored
specifically to be compatible with the DFSG and make works licensed
under the Attribution or Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licenses acceptable
for inclusion in Debian.
One of the major criticisms of Creative Commons has been that they don't
distinguish between free licenses (or licenses at least intended for use
on free software) and those that aren't even compatible with free
software in intention.
I've made the suggestion in an essay on my personal Web site that if
debian-legal and the ftpmasters decide that works licensed under the 3.0
licenses are acceptable for inclusion in Debian, that CC should note
that fact on the license deeds and on their license chooser:
http://evan.prodromou.name/CC_Licence_Distinctions
My question is: at what point would it be acceptable for a third-party
organization to state that a license is "DFSG-compatible"? At what point
would it be acceptable to use the Debian trademarks (name and/or open
use logo) to underline that fact?
Our review process for licenses in the past has been casual and
non-authoritative at best (with the notable exception of our recent GR
on the GFDL). I don't think we want to get into the OSI's business of
approving licenses.
But I think there's some value for people deciding on a license in
knowing which licenses clearly prevent a work from being included in
Debian and which do not. So: if there's a public statement by Debian or
debian-legal on a license (like http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary
is now), would it be misleading for an organization to point to that
statement? Especially if it was clear that the review and approval was
not an endorsement of the organization or their goals?
Thanks,
~Evan
--
Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org>
The Debian Project (http://www.debian.org/)
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