On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 01:55:13PM +0100, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
I don't think this is a good idea. It prevents (for example) contributing the same content to two different guides with an identical scheme. It also prevents reuse of material from other guides.
Agreed.
I'm worried by the "Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one." bit. Even the GPL allows distribution under compatible licences. This licence means you can't merge content from OxfordGuide with content from London and Nottingham guides, since presumably 1.0 is not identical to 2.0. In general being compatible with the broadest possible spectrum of licences (consistent with the restrictions you actually do want) would seem to be a good thing.
Not quite. From http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/4216:
| Version 2.0 licenses that feature the Share Alike requirement now | clarify that derivatives may be re-published under one of three types of | licenses: (1) the exact same license as the original work; (2) a later | version of the same license as the original work; (3) an iCommons | license that contains the same license elements as the original work | (e.g. BY-SA-NC, as defined in Section 1 of each license). The version | 1.0 licenses required that derivative be published under the exact same | license only. Our tweak means much better compatibility across future | jurisdiction-specific licenses and, going forward, across versions. Less | forking, more fun.
True, this still doesn't allow transfer of content from a CC 1 -> CC 2 work, but this can be fixed by updating the CC 1 work to use the CC 2 licence, which should be uncontroversial in most cases.
Can you clarify by example your comment about the GPL? I can't see from a quick flick through where it allows derivative works to be distributed under a "compatible" licence? (what is a compatible licence, anyway?)
Section 2.b of the GPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html certainly seems unequivocable:
| b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in | whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part | thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties | under the terms of this License.
I think you need to deal with attribution appropriately. My suggestion for doing this would be to include an Attribution section in each page that people can add themselves to if they wish when making a change.
Probably best implemented as a checkbox in the edit form: "I wish to be attributed for the input I have made into this article" or somesuch. I'll raise this issue on the dev list.
Thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Dominic.