[License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tim Makarios (tjm1983 at gmail.com):

> On Wed, 2015-04-01 at 09:58 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Software has special problems that CC's classes of licences don't need
> > to address.  I have no problem reverse-engineering the construction of a
> > novel to determine how to write my own.  (There cannot be a proprietary 
> > secret sauce, no unavailable or obscured source code.)
> 
> But if you wanted to write a look-alike parody, or make an adaptation
> that adds something completely new to the existing text (like Pride and
> Prejudice and Zombies, for example), or even just print your own copies
> in a larger font, it might be useful for you to have the .tex source
> that was used to typeset the novel. 

I expected someone to raise this edge-case-obsessive point, but, as a
matter of fair perspective, here you are talking about improved
convenience rather than elimination of any serious obstacle.   Given
that Seth Grahame-Smith was already probably lavishing about a year of
his life on writing _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic
Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!_, I doubt that
the sad modern-era unavailability of Jane Austen's 1797 TeX source files
(from which Knuth got the idea[1]) was much of an obstacle to the
writing of his novel, in context.

Nothing's totally free of cost.

> This is just an example, by way of introducing the question:  How much
> extra effort is it reasonable for a free culture or free software
> licence to demand people go to, on top of merely demanding that they
> don't sue people who re-use their work?

Demanding?  Reasonable?  

Sorry, but all this sounds to me like out-of-scope ideological concerns
with little or no releance to licensing.  (Your mileage may differ.)

> Reasonable people will give different answers to this question, I'm
> sure, but I don't think it's consistent for the sub-culture that
> advocates copyright abolition to demand anything other than a promise
> not to sue (but I do think it's reasonable for them to demand a
> promise not to sue in exchange for a promise not to sue). 

I'm sorry, but _who_ exactly are you saying is advocating abolition of
copyright?  And what colour is the sky in their vicinity?

[1] Yes, I was trying to be amusing, there.  Sorry if I missed.