On Thursday 06 July 2006 00:16, Brendan Scott wrote:
<snip>
>
> The non commercial restriction would prevent its inclusion in a BSD
> licensed product as much as in a GPL licensed one, because each of these
> licences gives recipients the right to use and reproduce the product for
> commercial purposes - something expressly prohibited by the nc licence.

I was not speaking so much to how the CCL (especially NC) interoperates with 
GPL or BSD as much as I was talking about how the sides argue the merits of 
GPL vs. BSD.  It seems like a very similar debate to the NC or non-NC debate 
when it comes to the CCL.  In the case of the source code licenses, the clash 
seems to be more over proprietary vs non-proprietary.  In the case of content 
(since one would not hide it like source code), it seems to come out as the 
difference between commercial and non-commercial.  I stand corrected that it 
is not "the same debate", though imho opinion they are similar.

> I didn't say they definitely were, I said they might be.  I think it is
> pretty clear that (for example) BY-SA will be incompatible with the GPL.

Why would BY-SA be incompatible with the GPL?  My impression of the BY-SA 
requirements is that they require you to maintain attribution (e.g. copyright 
notices) and license whatever you do with the content for others to use in 
the same manner (i.e. your own BY-SA).  Isn't that the same as the GPL 
requiring copyrights be maintained and if you create something with GPL code 
you have to release your own code under a GPL (or otherwise make it 
available)? (I'm assuming in either case you are releasing something new into 
the world rather than just using it internally).

> I don't like the term "open content".  But my main point is that people
> should understand that it doesn't mean what they think it means.   My
> article is intended to convey this one simple point:

I like the term itself, but as you note, it is so abused and used improperly, 
that it rarely corresponds with what one would think it means.

> Knowing that something is "open content", or even "Creative Commons" does
> not assist in determining whether the content can be used in an open source
> project.

I would agree with that.  The term "open content" imo has not achieved 
significant mindshare to have a common meaning for folks (and often is 
wrong - see above) and the CCL variations need study by anyone relying on 
them.

> Vagueness only relates to the BY/BY-SA incompatibility.  Given that I
> didn't (and still don't) know the answer, I was obliged to be vague.  I did
> voice my suspicion and did it in a qualified way.  My suspicion it remains.
>  The article had a very short word limit as well btw.

Perhaps that is why I am having trouble reconciling what you wrote with what I 
think your points and position are.  Earlier you indicate "it is pretty 
clear" that BY-SA is incompatible with the GPL, but now you indicate you 
were "obliged to be vague" because you don't really know the answer (nor do 
I).

Having tried to work through many similar issues myself, I have to suspect 
that the biggest culprit is the length of the article limitations you allude 
to.  As it is, the article gave me the impression of "open content licenses 
are not really open content and not really compatible with open source 
projects/software, so beware".  Hopefully I was the only one Perhaps with 
more space to work with, that impression could have been avoided.

Thanks for taking the time to drop in and follow-up! 

Jeff Causey

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