[Foundation-l] Creative Commons CC-BY-SA Draft Statement of Intent

[Brianna Laugher]

On 05/04/2008, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Sorry to be dense, but could someone explain the significance of this?
>  What does the new development allow or prevent that wasn't allowed or
>  prevented before?

The development of the Statement of Intent is the first item on the
"CC-BY-SA migration checklist" developed by Erik in December last
year.
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-December/035677.html>

This checklist came out of weeks (months?) of copious discussion after
the idea of "equalising" GFDL and CC-BY-SA was floated. The checklist
is a summary of what needs to happen to appease concerns raised about
the idea, I think.

Interestingly the last point on the checklist has already occurred
(well actually, part of it).
The point was:
>>> Some improvements to the CC-BY-SA "frontpage" which includes the
license summary. In addition to any clarifications that might be
desirable, I've discussed with Larry before the possibility of clearly
labeling CC-BY-SA as a "libre" license, in accordance with the
definition at freedomdefined.org -- he has expressed support for this
idea.
<<<
The text hasn't changed, but there is a freedomdefined.org "seal of
approval" on the -PD -BY and -BY-SA licenses.
Announcement <http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8051>
Implementation <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>

Anyway, as to why a "Statement of intent" was considered important in
the first place, I think it is/was because the GFDL has a "preamble"
which performs a similar function.
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html>
Given that the license guardians can change the terms of future
licenses, and these licenses are used with a "...or any later version"
clause, a statement of intent helps ease concerns that the guardians
may change the terms in a later version, in a way that current
licensors would not approve of.

cheers
Brianna

-- 
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/