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AllenDowney / ThinkOS

Text and supporting code for Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems, by Allen Downey.
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Wishlist: Please consider CC-BY instead of CC-BY-NC #1

Closed mjevans closed 6 years ago

mjevans commented 10 years ago

I feel you might have selected the CC-BY-NC license as a way of attempting to ensure that others do not profit off of your work (I agree with this goal) without understanding that for such an ends it is already redundant (your work is available for free). It actually excludes your work from contributing to an open commons in which, for example, might include for profit educational institutions (colleges) using your book as a required course material.

For a much more informed discussion please consider the content of this linked discourse: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874#comment-372240

AllenDowney commented 10 years ago

Thanks for this suggestion. I appreciate both the spirit and the content.

My choice of the NC version of the license is an imperfect compromise. The primary benefit is that it allows me to work with my publisher, O'Reilly Media, to develop and distribute free books with the option of publishing them, later, with O'Reilly or other publishers who are willing to publish CC books only with the NC clause.

I would also add that the NC clause would have prevented some of my earlier books from being used in ways that were not great. For example, I published an early version of Think Complexity with clear notification that it was an incomplete draft. Despite that, CreateSpace started selling copies on Amazon. People who bought the draft were not pleased and wrote bad reviews. So that's bad for me.

I understand your concern that the NC version restricts people from working with the book in some desirable ways, but I would point out that I still have the option of granting more liberal licenses to individuals, and I have done that with several of my books. If you want to do something the NC clause would prohibit, just ask, and I can license it to you under whatever terms we agree on.

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:15 PM, mjevans notifications@github.com wrote:

I feel you might have selected the CC-BY-NC license as a way of attempting to ensure that others do not profit off of your work (I agree with this goal) without understanding that for such an ends it is already redundant (your work is available for free). It actually excludes your work from contributing to an open commons in which, for example, might include for profit educational institutions (colleges) using your book as a required course material.

For a much more informed discussion please consider the content of this linked discourse: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874#comment-372240

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/AllenDowney/ThinkOS/issues/1 .