On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Michael Snow<wikipe...@verizon.net> wrote: > I don't think I'd be so quick to blame Creative Commons for this, > regardless of the advice they've given. It seems like most people > reusing copyleft materials in good faith do so without fully > understanding the concept, advice or no advice. I've seen plenty of GFDL > material combined with other works in this way as well, even when as you > say, the whole clearly builds upon the original rather than being a > collection of works that can stand independently. It's a bad practice > and a major educational challenge for free licenses, but I don't find it > that closely related to the issue of choosing a free license in the > first place.
To be full clear: I was not attempting to and would not blame Creative Commons because other people make errors regarding licensing. As you point out— confusion in this area is a universal truth. The critical distinction is that when someone makes an error regarding the application of the GFDL I can write them a polite explanation, and even point them to the FSF blog entry commenting specifically on this issue. I have a 100% satisfaction rate with this approach. With CC-By-SA there exist a distinct risk that any attempt to educate will be simply be countered by a reference to the incorrect claim that CC-By-SA's copyleft doesn't extend past the edges of an image, leading to a distinctly more adversarial negotiation. Of course— many people will claim many things, and these things are not legally binding— but I think you have to agree that the words of a party with near unilateral power to change the licensing terms does have a special authority. This is a primary factor why the majority of my illustrations remain FDL-1.2 only and also why I discontinued contributing copyrightable works to Wikimedia while the licensing question was open. It is not the only factor, but it's one that can be fixed. Cheers, _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
