On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Finally, I'd like to quote something that you said and make a comment: "My experience has been that those who object to this haven't given adequate attention to the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses we operate under -- neither license is "free,""
Umm, WTF? The GFDL and CC licenses aren't free? What's that whole thing about Wikipedia being "the free encyclopedia", then? Did I misunderstand the context in which you said that or did you misspeak or something?
What I mean is that "free" in the context of "free licensing" doesn't precisely mean "free as in free speech" any more than it means "free as in free beer." Whether you're talking GFDL or CC-BY-SA or any other "free license," you're talking imposing downstream obligations on re-users that are more onerous than those imposed on (for example) re-users of public domain works.
Properly understood, we know exactly why we're imposing these downstream obligations, and we believe that doing so supports a larger sense of "freedom," but we must remember that free licenses are themselves tools designed to invoke rights in copyright and impose obligations relating to rights in copyright, even as they also provide rights to re-users.
--Mike