On Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:42:22 -0600 Terry Hancock wrote: > Francesco Poli wrote: > > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:08:48 -0600 Terry Hancock wrote: > > > > Is this a good reason to avoid promoting such freedoms among > > creators? > > That's a "strawman argument": No it's not. > CC promotes By and By-SA licenses as > well as NC, ND and others. If there's a fault it's that they don't > offer strong differentiation in that support. Exactly that. Creative Commons promotes a number of licenses ranging from close-to-but-not-really-free to blatantly-non-free, without any differentiation and with no (or very few) arguments based on the concept of freedom. This is avoiding any promotion of the above-mentioned freedoms among creators. > > > Is this a good reason to drive creators away from good licenses that > > would make their works DFSG-free? > > Another strawman: CC doesn't "driver creators away from good > licenses". They offer several different alternatives. None of which meet the DFSG, currently (apart from public domain dedication and CC-GNU (L)GPL, assuming that you are willing to label them as "CC licenses"). [...] > > Let's consider SID tunes. > > AFAIK, a SID tune basically contains code that is executed by a SID > > chip emulator in order to play music. > > > > Are SID tunes "content" or "executed works"? > > I would say: both at the same time. > > Seems to me the author would be a completely reasonable person to make > that distinction. If they wish to view their work as "more content > than code" then they ought to be able to do that and license > accordingly. > > Alternatively, the package maintainer could decide that when bringing > it into Debian. So, you think it's OK to apply different freedom criteria depending on a completely arbitrary distinction between "content" and "executed works"... - This "executed work" is not acceptable for Debian main, since it does not meet the DFSG - I view it more as "content"... - Ah, OK, then it's completely acceptable, let's upload! If this is what you mean, I disagree with you. > The problem is that as things stand, Debian no longer > provides distinct handling for content and code. It never did, as MJ Ray already explained to you. > There are a variety > of problems with the upcoming version that derive from this one > problem. There are a variety of freedom issues that come from many attempts to introduce exceptions and distinctions similar to the one you propose. [...] > >>Stallman overstates the case against Creative Commons, in my > >personal >opinion. > > > > Not at all, I think RMS really detected the key difference between > > the two approaches. I agree with him, for this matter. > > If RMS really wanted a license that focused solely on user freedoms, > without consideration of long term consequences for creators, he > would've advocated non-copyleft licenses like the BSD or MIT/X11 > license. But he didn't. He advocated the GPL, which is also > creator-centric. Perhaps less so than some of the CC licenses, but > there is no discontinuity. There *is* discontinuity, IMO. The GNU GPL v2 introduces restrictions only for the purpose of protecting freedoms (i.e.: in order to avoid that those freedoms are stripped out from modified versions of the work). The GNU GPL v2 is not perfect, as it includes some minor improvable clauses, but the license *does* meet the DFSG. I don't think it's fair to consider the GNU GPL v2 as "creator-centric". [...] > >>What I do believe Creative Commons has done wrong is to essentially > >>"pass off" NC licenses as "free" licenses, diluted the "free" brand > >>image. Recipients of NC works may think that they've already > >>appreciated the full depth of "free content" and not realize that > >they >are experiencing a crippled version of it. > > > > You say that as if it were a *minor* issue! > > No, you just read it that way. I think it's very serious. Sorry for misreading your tone, then. > > > This is *the* issue: one of the worst things that CC has done and is > > still doing nowadays. Given the great impact that CC managed to > > have on people, this is enough to destroy a long time spent by the > > free software movement to try and educate the public on the meaning > > and the importance of free software... :-( > > In a way, though, you are making the same mistake that Microsoft makes > in claiming all those damages from "software piracy": just as they > assume that every illegally copy of Windows equates to a lost sale, > you are assuming that every CC-NC-* licensed work is a lost > free-licensed work. What do you consider as a reasonable estimation? If CC had *not* created the NC and ND options, how much CC-nc-* or CC-nd-* works would have been free[1]? One fifth (1/5) of them, perhaps? [1] assuming, for the sake of the argument, that other CC licenses have no freeness issues (they instead have some, as I repeatedly stated...) [...] > >>These problems are better served not by CC abandoning the NC > >licenses, >however, but by promoting better "brand differentiation" > >between NC, >ND, and free licenses. > > > > I don't agree, since if one thinks that a license should not be > > used, he/she should not promote it. > > CC doesn't think NC should not be used. You're missing the point. That's exactly the point I was trying to make: CC doesn't think NC should not be used, since otherwise it would act differently. In fact, CC promotes (among other things) non-commercial licenses, and that harms the free software movement. > > Even Richard Stallman says that aesthetic works like books and music > don't have to be free. [...] And I strongly disagree with him in this respect. -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/releas-o-meter.html Try our amazing Releas-o-meter! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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