Mr. Harmon Returns from One Place to Another
Open license proliferation is serious business
August 17, 2015
This happened on Twitter today:
This is a copyleft license for rich media. This has FAR TOO MANY FUCKING WORDS AND CLAUSES IN IT: http://t.co/I1a5Q1X74l #criticalmass
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015I'd like to encourage #libre artists to use the GAL instead of CCBY. No CC trademark, much more simple / palatable http://t.co/HEjawPVfZ3
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@lrockhq Attribution not required, but don't misrepresent? That's an intriguing idea, but could create headaches for downstream users.
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015@lrockhq What's the particular beef with CC BY being addressed here? (I no longer work at CC; I'm just a curious innocent bystander.)
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon Headaches come from length of legal code too. Plagiarism is 100% all I (& many others) wish to prevent.
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon Interesting. Amiable departure? Trademark, primarily. I also don't like hazy restrictions on tech. measures (anti-drm clause).
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon And it is maybe..1/2 beef, 1/2 just encouraging competition and in the free culture license supply.
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@lrockhq aaand, link to the [source/mirror] of the GAL encourages folks to visit http://t.co/MK5K2hh5hi, whose initiative I try to champion.
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon but I'll say, I should have used a different argument than "instead", since I am trying to encourage the choice/competition..
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@lrockhq But if B adapts A's work and doesn't provide attribution, and C wants to adapt B's work, C may be in danger of misrepresenting.
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015@lrockhq This feels like it's intended to fall somewhere between CC BY and CC0 on the freedom spectrum. I'm having trouble seeing a use case
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015@lrockhq (Or rather, a use case that couldn't be resolved with CC BY plus a waiver.)
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon Agreed. I guess it comes down to eloquence and succinctness.
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@elliotharmon True. That license.txt must be re-distributed by B. C should see it and attribute credit somehow.
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015@lrockhq Aha. I missed that on the first read. But still, without knowing who A is, how can C not misrepresent A's contribution?
— Elliot Harmon (@elliotharmon) August 17, 2015Gotta run for now @elliotharmon thanks for the dialogue :)
— Longrock HQ (@lrockhq) August 17, 2015This argument encapsulates something that never stops fascinating me about open licenses. The reasons why people choose to use them — or choose to ignore them, or choose to fork them or reinvent them — often really come down to aesthetics and perceived community allegiances more than the functionality of those licenses.
And for the record, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. A big part of CC’s growth had to do not just with the way the licenses functioned, but the aesthetic sensibility and community allegiance that they represented. To say “your new license divides the commons” may be, in some cases, to miss the point. Some people want to start their own pasture.*
Kat Walsh told me that a big part of why she came to CC was because she’d always wanted to write an open license. But she knew that she wanted to write it at Creative Commons, because the world didn’t need anymore open licenses.
Philosophically, I’m all for letting a million flowers bloom. Practically, I’m all for not reinventing the wheel. And in cases where there’s still a real community with real needs behind a smaller license, find ways to tear down the fence while still honoring the community. For example, when CC BY-SA and the Free Art License developed two-way compatability. Functionally, the licenses did roughly the same thing. But FAL represented a different community, a different set of values. That will all stay preserved for as long as people keep using the FAL, which is pretty cool.
* One big caveat. In cases where society is paying for open access works, either in the form of government funding or foundation-funded grants or what-have-you, don’t start your own pasture. Just use CC BY, homie.
