road map for CC-licenses

[HexeBianca]

For CC-licenses we have this road map to help the user decide, which one to choose: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1wAMbeADBWgy5VDb4PQL7XSgeGep44Jd_B0hifgOrWaQ/edit Can this be integrated somehow (maybe only for galleries)? Not sure if a link to google doc is a good thing to do. Probably better to save it as PDF, put it on the platform directly as file and link to it from text below the list of licenses in the licenses edit tab.

[HexeBianca]

Eric said: Shouldn't Imaginary try to lead authors to a license that allows derivatives and commercial use unless they're unable or feel very strongly about some other choice? The derivative aspect is important to allow for translations / localization of exhibits and commercial use is important because in some cases it applies even to non-profits.

Yes, i think so, too. And the green hearts in the diagram mark this intention. In the text below the field where to choose the license, we can give specific recommendation. The road map is for better understanding of the license system in general. Do you think, it is somehow leading in the wrong direction?

[elondaits]

Do you think, it is somehow leading in the wrong direction?

The roadmap, to me, suggests the submitter can make a choice based on his preferences, which are perhaps not very thought-out or based on practical reasons or actual use cases. I didn't understand that not picking the path of the hearts was specially bad or potentially detrimental to Imaginary... just a choice.

Other projects (e.g. Wikipedia) adopt a single license and ask that all contributions fall within it. Imaginary could choose it's favored one and make it the default and/or strongly suggest to use it unless there are reasons not to do so (e.g. the submitter is not the original author and the content already has a different license, it's tied to other licensed content, etc.)

Also, currently forms have the following text:

We recommend the two creative common licenses CC-by-nc-sa or CC-by-sa.

... which might lead people to chose them if they don't care or want to think much about it, but CC-by-nc-sa restricts the use of the content in projects that involve commercial exploitation, even if done non-profit.

[porst17]

It is also important to note that the NC and ND flags do not work well with most open source licenses, see #114.

[HexeBianca]

There is no such text: "We recommend the two creative common licenses CC-by-nc-sa or CC-by-sa." for galleries, or at least I did not see it.

[HexeBianca]

I had galleries in mind when creating the road map. Most users don't know very much about licenses and need help when choosing one. They are free to choose which ever open source license they want. On top of the road map, there is also a link to the terms of use, specifying the interpretation of "non-commercial" use, which allows some cases of commercial use.

I think, for images it is not that important to avoid NC or ND as for software. However, I totally agree with you, it would be better if everyone granted broad use of their work. However, we do offer all options of CC-licenses and should explain it to the user.

[elondaits]

The recommendation is in Programs (where it's doubly wrong because programs shouldn't use CC licenses). I didn't check the other content types but it's possible it's there in other cases.

Besides the matter of license policy I could add a link to the edit form for either a PDF, an image or a page, no problem.

[porst17]

The problem with any kind of material is: Whenever it is licensed as ND or NC, it is hard to use and distribute it as part of a program, e.g. including it in a gallery in Surfer. These licenses are considered non-free by the Free Software Foundation and others.

Also, the CC licenses do not say anything about open source. With CC, the authors are licensing their work, not the sources of there work, in general. Author can licensed the source used to create an image under CC, though. But in most cases, they don't.