On 1/22/07, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
CC-by-NC isn't a copyleft license, so the compatibility would be really strange. A derivative of a GFDL article (which wasn't an aggregate) would have to be GFDL. But a derivative of a CC-by-NC article doesn't have to be CC-by-NC. However, the original work would still be under CC-by-NC, so unless the original authors gave [you] other permissions, you'd still have to follow CC-by-NC for any derivatives. As for a work entirely released under *both* GFDL *and* CC-by-NC, that'd be kind of cool. You could use the work under the GFDL, complete with all its obnoxious requirements, *or* you could use the work under CC-by-NC, without all the GFDL's obnoxious requirements, but only if you do so for noncommercial purposes.
...or you could just go with CC-By-SA, which _is_ a copyleft license, but not nearly as obnoxious as the GFDL.
Absolutely, and personally I much prefer CC-by-SA to the GFDL. But CC-by-NC does have one big advantage. An article licensed under CC-by-NC can be legally combined with other articles licensed under different licenses to create a derivative work. I don't think CC-by-NC is a good license to use *by itself*, but combining it with a free copyleft license makes for an interesting scenario.
Copyleft was a tremendous idea when the GPL was essentially the only copyleft license. Now that there are multiple competing copyleft licenses things get a lot more tricky. Hopefully someone will come up with a new innovation which fixes the problem of competing copylefts.
Anthony