4.0/Compatibility

From Creative Commons
Jump to: navigation, search

This page presented an issue for consideration in the CC license suite 4.0 versioning process. The discussions have now concluded with the publication of the 4.0 licenses, and the information on this page is now kept as an archive of previous discussions. The primary forum for issues relating to the 4.0 versioning process was the CC license discuss email list. You may subscribe to contribute to any continuing post-launch discussions, such as those surrounding compatibility and license translation. The wiki has been populated with links to relevant email threads from the mailing list where applicable, and other topics for discussion were raised in the 4.0/Sandbox. See the 4.0 page for more about the process.

Page summary: Creative Commons is exploring compatibility with the stewards of the Free Art License and the GNU GPL v3.0. The idea of CC Compatible Licenses was introduced to the SA licenses in version 3.0 and included a still empty website page for listing compatible licenses.

Draft 1 Treatment: Not addressed in draft 1.

Draft 2 Treatment:

Considerations regarding compatibility of other licenses

  • Consider addressing uncertainty regarding releasing a work (adaptation/ derivative) under a CC Compatible license
    • When I thought about CC-BY-SA 3.0 --> GFDL transition as a hypothetical case, it was not necessarily all clear how I would "follow" GFDL after creating a derivative of a CC-BY-SA'd work.
    • To address the uncertainty, consider developing a "exemplary practice guideline" that would serve as a "safe harber" - i.e. the range of practice that is considered to be "in compliance" with both licenses for the transition purposes. Practice outside of the guideline may be okay, or maybe not. Insert some language to make this safe harbor effective in 4.0. After some licenses become compatible, develop such guidelines with steward of the compatible license.
  • GPL Compatibility. CC BY does not make any specific requirements on the exact license an adaptation may be released under, but it ought be possible for downstream licensee of adaptation to fulfill CC BY conditions when fulfilling conditions of license adaptation offered under, ie conditions of license adaption under should be a superset of CC BY conditions. CC BY may be slightly misaligned with GPL such that latter's conditions not a strict superset of former. FSF says CC BY is not GPL compatible -- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ccby

Please add other important considerations to this discussion here.

Proposals relating to compatibility in 4.0

For ease of reference on discussion lists, please do not alter proposal numbers.

Compatibility Proposal No. 1: Clarify definition of Creative Commons Compatible License. (Currently, "Creative Commons Compatible License" means a license that is listed at http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses that has been approved by Creative Commons as being essentially equivalent to this License, including, at a minimum, because that license: (i) contains terms that have the same purpose, meaning and effect as the License Elements of this License; and, (ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under this License or a Creative Commons jurisdiction license with the same License Elements as this License."

  • Pros:
  • Cons: Current language is ambiguous. Does it mean (a) the compatible license must give options for a licensee to pick any of those CC licenses? Or does it mean that (b) the compatible license must give at least one of those CC licenses as an option?
  • Other comments: Better wording (though I am not a native speaker) suggestions, for (a) and (b) above, respectively, are:
      • (ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under any of the Creative Commons licenses with the same License Elements as this License, including this License.
      • (ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under at least one of the Creative Commons licenses with the same License Elements as this License, such as this License, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Australia license, or Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Japan license.
  • Treatment in 4.0 d.1: Not addressed in this initial draft; only BY-NC-SA is published for review during this first comment period. Please continue to put forth and comment on proposals for draft #2, which will likely include all six licenses.


Related debate

We encourage you to sign up for the license discussion mailing list, where we will be debating this and other 4.0 proposals. HQ will provide links to related email threads from the license discussion mailing list here.

Relevant references

Please add citations that ought inform this 4.0 issue below.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php?title=4.0/Compatibility&oldid=58351"