CC-BY-ND license incompatible with Github forks?

[LouisStAmour]

Hi, if you're using an ND license, doesn't that mean we can't publicly fork the project to propose our own patches, etc.? I'm asking because as far as I can tell, it's very uncommon for software code to be licensed under Creative Commons licenses to begin with.

According to the ND license:

NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

Which means the project is essentially read-only until you choose to publish any patches or changes we make and submit in private, yes? That doesn't work well on Github then, nor does it help protect you against liabilities.

Quoting from the CC FAQ:

Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software? We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative.

Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Many software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works. Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed work with other free software. Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the Creative Commons licenses.

Our licenses are currently not compatible with the GPL, though the CC0 Public Domain Dedication is GPL-compatible and acceptable for software. For details, see the relevant CC0 FAQ entry. We are looking into compatibility of BY-SA with GPL in the future; see the license compatibility page for more information.)

While we recommend against using a CC license on software itself, CC licenses may be used for software documentation, as well as for separate artistic elements such as game art or music.

Found this project via HN, btw, a passing mention in the comments for a different bit of open source project management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397878

[chintanbanugaria]

I guess not. The whole idea of using the license was to make sure if any one extend anything in this app, it has to be public so that whole community gets benefit from that.

Since this app is free for the community, if any developments are done it has to be public. Hence non-derivatives. Of course you can fork it.

What you cant do is:

• sell this app commercially
• extend this app and then sell it commercially,
• modify the code and then sell it commercially

Let me know if you need more clarification on licensing.

P.S. Thanks for advocating the app on hacker news in that thread. :)

[rsolvang]

I'm not an expert on licensing, but I share the concerns brought up by @LouisStAmour. 'Non-derivative' implies that no-one except the creator of the code, can edit, add or subtract to the code. It think it would be wise to follow CC's own recommendations about not using their license for code, but rather find a license that is made specifically for this purpose.

Interesting project by the way, I'm going to give it a try on my server soon!

[chintanbanugaria]

Agreed. Will surely look into something for the same. Thanks.

[krusynth]

The CC-ND is definitely a big problem for collaborative development from the community. Maybe look at GPL if your intent is to force any updates to be released back to the community?

[iamkirkbater]

I know this issue is a little old, but I found this to be very helpful when I look at licenses as I don't remember each and every one: http://choosealicense.com/

It looks like you're looking for the GPL License.