Re: Unbundling the GPL

Erik Moeller schrieb:
> On 4/23/07, Joachim Durchholz <jodurchholz.org> wrote:
>> However, they aren't applicable to all situations.
The GPL is
>> Attribution/Derivative/Share-Alike, the LGPL is
Attribution/Derivative.
>> There's no option for Noncommercial or
No-Derivative.
>>
>> I think cc.org could help here.
> 
> If by "help" you mean "cause needless
division, friction and
> incompatibility", then yes .

Please elaborate.
I think to the contrary: since there's a need for non-free
licenses (as 
the various license models have shown), it will help reduce
the license 
clutter for software what isn't free by the FOSS definition
but still 
useful to the general public.

> Even if one buys into the notion that there are
different "sharing
> cultures" around culture as a whole,

Actually, CC already has embraced that notion.
Otherwise, there would be just a single license, its
contents equivalent 
to what's currently known as
"Attribution/Share-Alike".

 > the open source/free software movement has clearly
converged on a high
 > standard of freedom.

Of course those who write FOSS have converged on licensing
terms that 
uphold the FOSS definition; that's a circular argument.
It neglects those who don't fit the definition of FOSS.

 > The success stories of Apache, Linux, MySQL, and
 > so on would have been impossible without commercial
use rights.

Sure. A Commercial or Non-Derivative license would
definitely have been 
wrong for these software packages.
On the other hands, there are numerous less well-known
software packages 
that would have been more clearly labelled as "this is
not Open Source 
but you can use it anyway" if cc.org offered those
other licenses.

> If you want to create a new fringe movement, I don't
think it is the
> role of CC to support that.

No.
The GPL looks like good legal work, but it doesn't really
fit the 
licensing model of cc.org, and I'm curious why there's such
a peculiar 
exception. Software is special, but it's not so special that
it warrants 
such a massive exception as having just a single license
that uses 
different language, different legal concepts, etc.
I also see drawbacks; it's unclear how to apply the CC
framework to a 
work that's a combination of software and other art, for
example.

Regards,
Jo
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