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Re: [Fwd: Re: [cc-licenses] Comments on the latest public CC draft]



On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:13:52 -0500 Evan Prodromou wrote:

> On Sun, 2007-25-02 at 19:16 +0100, Francesco Poli wrote:
[...]
> > This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: I'm not yet
> > convinced that this clause meets the DFSG.
> 
> I disagree, and I think there's been some general agreement that if
> the request-to-remove only applies to metadata like authorship
> credits, it's DFSG compatible. Note that the original author cannot
> interfere with the contents of the work itself.

I cannot fully see this distinction between data and metadata.

I'm aware of an exception that the Debian Project grants for license
texts, as long as they are packaged as the licenses that apply to works
distributed in Debian.
Those license texts are acceptable, even when they are not modifiable,
and so forth.

I'm not aware of any other exception for metadata, such as authorship
credits.

Many licenses require that *accurate* credits be kept.  This seems to be
fine and acceptable (that is to say it's DFSG-free).

On the other hand, if a license required *inaccurate* credit, I think it
would be considered non-free.
If this is the case, how can forbidding *accurate* credit be considered
acceptable?

> 
> > This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: credit must
> > be "at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing
> > authors".  Even if the licensor's contribution is not comparable to
> > others.
> 
> "*IF* a credit for all contributing authors of the ... Work appears."
> In other words, if you're listing out everybody, list out everybody.
> If you don't want to list out everybody, you can just leave people out
> as you wish.

I could want to list out everybody, but with different prominence,
depending on the importance of the contribution...

In my old example, one could want to put a "credit for all contributing
authors" and list

Tom Twentyfivechapters    <-- in 12 pt fonts
Nancy Nineteenchapters    <-- in 12 pt fonts
Oliver Oneortwochapters   <-- in 11 pt fonts

It seems reasonable to me, but still does not comply with the license
granted by Oliver (assuming his one or two chapters have been adapted
from a work previously published by him under the terms of
CC-by-sa-v3.0), since credit for Oliver would not be "at least as
prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors".

> 
> I, and other members of the Debian CC Working Group, *don't* think
> that that is an onerous burden that makes it practically difficult or
> even impossible to exercise DFSG rights.

In your summary on CC-v2.0 licenses[1], you state:

| Requiring inaccurate or excessive authorship credits is an
| unreasonable restriction on distribution (DFSG 1) and making modified
| versions (DFSG 3).

[1] http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

I think that requiring a credit "at least as prominent as the credits
for the other contributing authors" for a small contribution is
requiring excessive credit.
That's why I consider this clause as a non-free restriction.

As I said, if the clause said "at least as prominent as the credits for
the authors of other comparable contributions", it would be OK, but the
actual clause doesn't say so, unfortunately.

In your summary on CC-v.2.0 licenses[1], you recommend Creative Commons
to:

| Require "credit for comparable authorship" rather than "comparable
| authorship credit". This makes it clear that the Licensor should be
| credited in proportion to their contribution, rather than equally to
| all other authors.

I still think that "the Licensor should be credited in proportion to
their contribution, rather than equally to all other authors.", as you
seemed to think at the time of the writing of the summary.
Did you change your mind, in the meanwhile?
Could you elaborate why?


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