[Labs-l] Licensing: CC vs. ODbL vs. ???

[Erik Moeller]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Ryan Lane <rlane at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> It's easy to include open source licenses because we have an organization
> that certifies what counts as open source. Is there a similar organization
> for open content licenses?

The WMF's policy (
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy )
references the Definition of Free Cultural Works (
http://freedomdefined.org/Definition ) which has some comparisons of
licenses (e.g. http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses ) but does not
expressly approve or reject licenses as such. In practice, the
community of sites like Wikimedia Commons has been vetting licenses
for DFCW compatibility (through wiki pages like
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing ) and I think a
similar process would be viable here.

That said, there's another definition that's supported by a non-profit
organization, the Open Knowledge Definition (
http://opendefinition.org/ ) which maintains a list of conformant
licenses similar to OSI's approved open source licenses (
http://opendefinition.org/licenses/ ). It's not very comprehensive,
but it for example includes the ODbl.

Either approach (referencing the DFCW which is the baseline of WMF's
licensing policy, and letting the community sort out disputes, or
referencing the OKD) should be workable. The OKD does not materially
differ from the DFCW for most practical purposes, IIRC (cf.
http://opendefinition.org/okd/ ).

Erik
-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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