[Foundation-l] Two questions about the licensing update of media files

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Michael Snow<wikipedia at 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,