Creative Commons

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Raj Mathur (raju at linux-delhi.org):
> On Tuesday 05 Aug 2008, Somik Raha wrote:
>
> > However, some contributions will be in the form of powerpoint
> > templates, and the Create Commons Attribution license seems to be
> > simple enough to allow for commercial and non-commercial usage, while
> > keeping it open. AFAIK, not all CC licenses are OSI-compliant, and I
> > could not find any CC licenses on the OSI list that have been
> > approved. Interestingly enough, OSI's homepage uses a CC license.
> 
> The reason you don't find the CC licences on its web site is that OSI 
> does not approve any licences other than software licences.  Being the 
> Open Source Initiative, their mandate is (at least currently) 
> restricted to the software domain.
> 
> However, I don't see how you can go wrong using one of the CC licences, 
> which are the de-facto standard for open document publishing and 
> implicitly approved by the OSI by use.  Any OSI board member (I used to 
> be one) would probably advise you to choose the CC licence that meets 
> your needs and go ahead with it.

It should be bourne in mind that most of the CC licences are (by design)
proprietary.  That is, some of them intentionally do not grant the right
to create or distribute derivative works, and some of them intentionally
grant that right only for non-commercial re-use.

Applying the OSD as criterion, the current 3.0 licence revisions divide
like this, in my opinion:

Proprietary
-----------
Attribution-NoDerivs
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Attribution-NonCommercial
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Open source
-----------
Attribution
Attribution-ShareAlike

-- 
Cheers,               Chip Salzenberg: "Usenet is not a right."
Rick Moen            Edward Vielmetti: "Usenet is a right, a left, a jab,
rick at linuxmafia.com                     and a sharp uppercut to the jaw.
                                        The postman hits!  You have new mail."