I read in Two new small cute games in Debian that some CC-BY-3.0-licensed resources are now in Debian main repository, as part of the Which Way Is Up package. Does this mean that the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license is DFSG-free? The packager says yes; she did her due diligence and the ftpmasters accepted it. Others disagree. I can’t find any official statement written more recently than this statement about the CC 2.0 licenses.
I know there are license geeks and Debian developers who follow this blog. It would be awesome if you could get some sort of official declaration or GR on the issue (like this vote about the GFDL).
There was a discussion thread over at the Wikimedia Commons which considered some issues with the CC 3.0 licenses; the issue wasn’t the anti-DRM clause, it was a “moral rights” clause which, in essence, prohibits the use of media in a critical context, and which appears in some versions (Unported) and not in some others (US). These rights exist in some jurisdictions (e.g., Germany) whether or not the license specifies them, but the problem becomes that they then exist in jurisdictions that don’t provide them, and add a level of restriction and non-free-ness that wasn’t there before, and that sort of thing has no place in a free-content license.
Adding more confusion to the discussion, the moral rights clause has been present in the cc-by-sa-2.0-de license for some time now, but it seems that nobody at the Wikimedia Commons noticed until recently.
Comment by grendelkhan — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
Generally the ftp masters decide what is suitable in the case of new licence by either accepting or rejecting packages in NEW. E.g. the first package (afaik) that determined the suitability of the IBM CPL was graphviz, when it was accepted (prior to that it was licenced under the decidedly non-free AT&T Source Code Agreement). -legal is an informative list only, and doesn’t “lay down the law”. There has only really been one GR to decide the free-ness of a licence and that was the GFDL, making it the exception.
Comment by Jon — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
In that “statement about the CC 2.0 licenses” you linked to, the very first problem they have listed is with clause 4a, requiring you remov3 the authors credits upon request. Although the new version of this clause is worded slightly different, the requirement is still there.
From 2.0
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If You creat3 a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remov3 from the Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested. If You creat3 a Derivative Work, upon notice from any “Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remov3 from the Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.
–
From 3.0
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If You creat3 a Collection, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remov3 from the Collection any credit as required by Section 4(b), as requested. If You creat3 an Adaptation, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remov3 from the Adaptation any credit as required by Section 4(b), as requested.
–
P.S. I had to put creat3 & remov3 because your host was blocking it otherwise.
“This request was blocked by mod_security.”
Comment by Jay Tuley — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
Cool! Anti-spam code exerting an adaptive selection pressure on written language!
Comment by Anonymous — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 3:08 pm
Cool! Anti-spam code exerting an adaptive selection pressure on written language!
Comment by Michael R. Bernstein — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
Cool! Code exerting an overt adaptive selection pressure on written text!
Comment by Michael R. Bernstein — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Oops. Sorry for the duplicates.
Comment by Michael R. Bernstein — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
http://evan.prodromou.name/Debian_Creative_Commons_Workgroup_report covers pretty much everything - the GFDL GR shows anti-DRM clauses don’t make a license non-free.
Comment by James — Thursday, July 5, 2007 @ 10:21 pm