Re: [Fwd: Re: [cc-licenses] Comments on the latest public CC draft]
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I think that requiring a credit at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors for a small contribution is requiring excessive credit. That's why I consider this clause as a non-free restriction. As I said, if the clause said at least as prominent as the credits for the authors of other comparable contributions, it would be OK, but the actual clause doesn't say so, unfortunately. Okay, I'm thinking of programs here, but I've come across several projects that, when they rev the program, drop the credits of authors of the previous version into a credits file. Given that linux replaces a considerable amount of code at every iteration, and other projects probably do the same, this seems fair. However, this clause, to me, seems to forbid this practice. Indeed, the drop credits into a file approach may be a very fair way of thanking authors whose work has been completely rewritten and who therefore no longer have any right to credit in the current work but who deserve credit because it was their work in the original instance. With this clause, how can you be fair to people like that? Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Fwd: Re: [cc-licenses] Comments on the latest public CC draft]
On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 09:55:07 + Anthony W. Youngman wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I think that requiring a credit at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors for a small contribution is requiring excessive credit. That's why I consider this clause as a non-free restriction. As I said, if the clause said at least as prominent as the credits for the authors of other comparable contributions, it would be OK, but the actual clause doesn't say so, unfortunately. Okay, I'm thinking of programs here, but I've come across several projects that, when they rev the program, drop the credits of authors of the previous version into a credits file. Given that linux replaces a considerable amount of code at every iteration, and other projects probably do the same, this seems fair. Possibly (at least, AFAIK, the GNU GPL v2 permits this practice!). However, this clause, to me, seems to forbid this practice. IIUC, it does. Indeed, the drop credits into a file approach may be a very fair way of thanking authors whose work has been completely rewritten and who therefore no longer have any right to credit in the current work but who deserve credit because it was their work in the original instance. With this clause, how can you be fair to people like that? I'm not sure I see your point here: when dealing with authors whose contribution has been completely deleted or replaced, we have no credit obligations whatsoever. We can of course thank them, but they cannot exploit copyright laws anymore in order to force us to credit them. Hence, this clause (or any other, for that matter) does not make a difference, being inside a license we don't need anymore: we do not need a license for a contribution we are no longer using... -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/refresh-pubring.html Need to refresh your keyring in a piecewise fashion? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpRPBtxKwYxi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Fwd: Re: [cc-licenses] Comments on the latest public CC draft]
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:13:52 -0500 Evan Prodromou wrote: On Sun, 2007-25-02 at 19:16 +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: [...] This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: I'm not yet convinced that this clause meets the DFSG. I disagree, and I think there's been some general agreement that if the request-to-remove only applies to metadata like authorship credits, it's DFSG compatible. Note that the original author cannot interfere with the contents of the work itself. I cannot fully see this distinction between data and metadata. I'm aware of an exception that the Debian Project grants for license texts, as long as they are packaged as the licenses that apply to works distributed in Debian. Those license texts are acceptable, even when they are not modifiable, and so forth. I'm not aware of any other exception for metadata, such as authorship credits. Many licenses require that *accurate* credits be kept. This seems to be fine and acceptable (that is to say it's DFSG-free). On the other hand, if a license required *inaccurate* credit, I think it would be considered non-free. If this is the case, how can forbidding *accurate* credit be considered acceptable? This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: credit must be at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. Even if the licensor's contribution is not comparable to others. *IF* a credit for all contributing authors of the ... Work appears. In other words, if you're listing out everybody, list out everybody. If you don't want to list out everybody, you can just leave people out as you wish. I could want to list out everybody, but with different prominence, depending on the importance of the contribution... In my old example, one could want to put a credit for all contributing authors and list Tom Twentyfivechapters-- in 12 pt fonts Nancy Nineteenchapters-- in 12 pt fonts Oliver Oneortwochapters -- in 11 pt fonts It seems reasonable to me, but still does not comply with the license granted by Oliver (assuming his one or two chapters have been adapted from a work previously published by him under the terms of CC-by-sa-v3.0), since credit for Oliver would not be at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. I, and other members of the Debian CC Working Group, *don't* think that that is an onerous burden that makes it practically difficult or even impossible to exercise DFSG rights. In your summary on CC-v2.0 licenses[1], you state: | Requiring inaccurate or excessive authorship credits is an | unreasonable restriction on distribution (DFSG 1) and making modified | versions (DFSG 3). [1] http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html I think that requiring a credit at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors for a small contribution is requiring excessive credit. That's why I consider this clause as a non-free restriction. As I said, if the clause said at least as prominent as the credits for the authors of other comparable contributions, it would be OK, but the actual clause doesn't say so, unfortunately. In your summary on CC-v.2.0 licenses[1], you recommend Creative Commons to: | Require credit for comparable authorship rather than comparable | authorship credit. This makes it clear that the Licensor should be | credited in proportion to their contribution, rather than equally to | all other authors. I still think that the Licensor should be credited in proportion to their contribution, rather than equally to all other authors., as you seemed to think at the time of the writing of the summary. Did you change your mind, in the meanwhile? Could you elaborate why? -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/refresh-pubring.html Need to refresh your keyring in a piecewise fashion? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpItvmmRfNFm.pgp Description: PGP signature
[Fwd: Re: [cc-licenses] Comments on the latest public CC draft]
I answered Francesco on cc-licenses, and I thought it'd be useful to forward the answers here, too. ~Evan ---BeginMessage--- On Sun, 2007-25-02 at 19:16 +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: In a recent message[1] to the cc-licenses list, a new draft of CC-v3.0 licenses was announced. I don't believe this is a draft anymore; it's now a released version. Since this is the case, it probably makes sense to have at least part of this conversation on debian-legal. This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: I'm not yet convinced that this clause meets the DFSG. I disagree, and I think there's been some general agreement that if the request-to-remove only applies to metadata like authorship credits, it's DFSG compatible. Note that the original author cannot interfere with the contents of the work itself. This is unchanged with respect to the previous drafts: credit must be at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. Even if the licensor's contribution is not comparable to others. *IF* a credit for all contributing authors of the ... Work appears. In other words, if you're listing out everybody, list out everybody. If you don't want to list out everybody, you can just leave people out as you wish. I, and other members of the Debian CC Working Group, *don't* think that that is an onerous burden that makes it practically difficult or even impossible to exercise DFSG rights. I disagree. ~Evan -- Evan Prodromou -- http://evan.prodromou.name/ By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms. -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ cc-licenses mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses ---End Message--- signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
