[License-discuss] Wikipedia Content

[Lawrence Rosen]

Henri, this issue keeps coming up here! On your behalf and on behalf of other curious readers here on this list, I will ask our Creative Commons friends your question: "Is the CC-SA license GPL-like?"

 

Boldly presaging their answer, I will equivocate: "Yes and no." 

 

Yes, it requires reciprocation by anyone who creates an Adaptation of the CC-BY work. No, it doesn't require anything more onerous than the Apache License for the mere incorporation of that work into a Collection. 

 

Apache's rule should state that any Apache project can incorporate CC-BY components into an Apache Collection. Apache projects can also *adapt* such works, but then our *adapted* versions *of the CC-BY components* must be under CC-BY. 

 

As for the "risk" to downstream users, there is none as long as they do not themselves create an Adaptation *of the CC-BY components* distributed in the Apache Collection but ignore the reciprocity requirement of CC-BY. That is why we create a NOTICE file with each Apache Collection. 

 

To be practical, I can't imagine a situation where Wikipedia content under CC-BY would matter much anyway to any downstream user of an Apache Collection. Such components are easy for distributors to remove or leave alone. Let's not allow confusion over license terms overrule the obvious.

 

As to its literary comparison to GPLv2: The Creative Commons folks have eliminated GPL-like confusion in their licenses. Their licenses are clearer, less ambiguous, understood around the world, and do not confuse people with terms like "static and dynamic linking" or "combining" or "baking code into other code" that have influenced the software industry for far too long. 

 

[FWIW, if it weren't for the rampant and self-inflicted confusion about "linking" with GPLv2 components, I would recommend that ASF also allow such GPL components in our Apache Collections. Of course Apache projects would have to be careful when they create Adaptations of such works and the NOTICE files would become even more relevant to some downstream users who are themselves distributors. Fortunately, I don't have to bring the GPLv2 or GPLv3 licenses up today.]

 

As long as we understand what Creative Commons and Apache Software Foundation both mean by *Adaptation* and *Collection* then we can safely use Creative Commons components.

 

/Larry

 

The following definitions in CC-SA are important:

"Adaptation" means a work based upon the Work, or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, adaptation, derivative work, arrangement of music or other alterations of a literary or artistic work, or phonogram or performance and includes cinematographic adaptations or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted including in any form recognizably derived from the original, except that a work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License. For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical work, performance or phonogram, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ("synching") will be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License.

"Collection" means a collection of literary or artistic works, such as encyclopedias and anthologies, or performances, phonograms or broadcasts, or other works or subject matter other than works listed in Section 1(f) below, which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations, in which the Work is included in its entirety in unmodified form along with one or more other contributions, each constituting separate and independent works in themselves, which together are assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation (as defined below) for the purposes of this License.

 

Cc: Creative Commons

 

 

From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bayard at apache.org] 
Sent: Monday, December 1, 2014 9:00 AM
To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com
Subject: Re: Wikipedia Content

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