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RMS says Creative Commons Unacceptable

Posted by Zonk on from the baby-with-the-bathwater dept.

Mr A Coward writes "Richard Stallman has stated in an interview that he no longer supports Creative Commons licenses. In the interview carried on LinuxP2P.com, and which is largely about the P2P and DRM issues, Stallman ends by saying: 'I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.' He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works." The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all. What's your take? Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?

6 of 647 comments (clear)

  1. are they different? by ummit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it's true (as RMS says in the interview) that the various Creative Commons licenses are "more different than similar", and if they differ on issues you care about, then yes, I would have to agree with Stallman that they need to be discussed separately, that you can't make a blanket statement saying either "I support CC licenses" or "I reject CC licenses". If some Creative Commons licenses are worth using and others aren't, it would be best to stop talking about them collectively as "Creative Commons licenses" and instead discuss them under their own names.

  2. News Flash! by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 5, Funny
    RMS thinks his license is better than everyone else's.

    In other news, water is still wet, Microsoft is still a monopoly, and people dislike paying taxes.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  3. I never would have guessed by 0racle · · Score: 5, Funny

    He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works.

    You mean he's pushing his own ideas as better then someone elses? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  4. GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox. by landley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read the draft and found a section that would prevent busybox from using GPLv3. (It's the second coming of the BSD advertising clause: each busybox binary would have to contain GPL boilerplate text in the binary itself, and we're trying for small binary size on embedded systems. In GPL2, the advertising clause was optional. In GPL3 it isn't. That's a fatal flaw for us.)

    I tried to comment through their web page, but it doesn't work with Konqueror. I sent a comment via their email system, but it was bounced by their robot. (The subject text, "Concerns about gpl3 and busybox", doesn't appear in the GPL draft document, this has not been seen by a human nor will it ever be. Try jumping through the hoop again.)

    It was about this time I decided I really don't care enough about placating Stallman. Sticking with v2 is just fine with me, and his opinion about creative commons is irrelevant as well. At this point, I consider Stallman irrelevant, and GPLv3 just another incompatible license fragmenting the open source userbase.

    A pity, really...

  5. GPL is not right for everything by samuel4242 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I like the GPL and use it for software, but it's just not right for things like text. For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:

    I love the Creative Commons. I think the Creative Commons is great as a whole, because some of its licenses are not unacceptable. In fact, I want Larry Lessig to have my baby. Wait that's not feasible.
    (Changes in bold .)
    What's right for software is not right for matters of opinion or fact. The distinction between sources and binaries don't matter here and actually confuse the right decisions. Nor is there any reason to believe that someone would get anything out of the ability to revise and extend anyone else's words. Okay, it might make sense for a collaborative manual, but I think there are many cases where the right leads to the trouble we're seeing with the clever editors of the Wikipedia.

  6. Re:What bunk! by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We don't live in a digital world, we live in a practical world - think practically.

    In both cases the thing being "shared" is information. The difference is that in the case of the book, the information is coupled with a physical object and thus causes the confusion in the form of some people's physical-world-coupled simian brains being unable to realize what it is they are sharing. Any "practical" measures to restrict sharing of information (which is what this is all about) will and must lead to totalitarian measures in regards to digital communication equipment i.e. computers and internet. It is not only "practical" but the only way.