Hello, I'm writing about the free/non-free status of the Creative Commons Attribution license, version 2.0 :
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode Last year this list discussed the version 1.0 license, and concluded that it was non-free : http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/dls-006-ccby Version 2.0 looks almost the same to me, so I assume that the concerns remain. I would be glad to see the CC-BY license inch a little closer towards "free" status. The Debian-legal page above includes this justification (among others) for the non-free status: It appears (though it's slightly unclear) that credit to original author(s) must be as prominently displayed, and in the same location, as credit to any other author. This restricts modification (DFSG �3). This seems to be based on this email from Jeremy Hankins: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/03/msg00279.html Where Jeremy wrote: This says you can't put your own name in big, bold letters on the cover while putting the original author's name in a footnote. It also requires that you preserve the original title along with the original author's name. I'd say this is non-free. Not because it also requires preserving the title (that I see no problem with), but because it (and the original author) must be as prominently displayed as the new title/author. The license doesn't say that the name must be prominent. It says that it must be "at least as prominent" as other credit. Last week I asked the cc-community list if I could just have an appendix titled "contributors" and put everyone's names on it. They said that should be fine. Now, back to this page: http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/dls-006-ccby The third justification refers to "the trademark notice on the license's website where it is not obvious if this notice is part of the license." I'm pretty sure the trademarrk notice is not part of the license. What would you suggest the CC team do to make this sufficiently obvious? I will relay your suggestion to the CC team. They're a nice bunch. Who knows? They might just make the alteration. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org |
