<nettime> dissolving opencontent digest [adam, auskadi]

["nettime's_solvent" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> opencontent.org dissolves and stalls its licenses
     adam <adam@xs4all.nl>
     auskadi <auskadi@tvcabo.co.mz>

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Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 16:38:21 +0200 (CEST)
From: adam <adam@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: <nettime> opencontent.org dissolves and stalls its licenses

hey all,

Just a quickie, i do find the idea of finding a name for a group of
licences a bit mundane, but i too have too much time on my hands ;-) and
so i thought i would chip in...

why not call the licences that appear under this 'text and not code' group
of licences...'open source'....???

Afterall, Open Source originated in the domain of 'text not code' as it
was (and still is) used in journalism.  Before being 'invented' (ie.
applied to software) by the Open Source Initiative, Open Source
had been around for a long time. The OSI doesnt own this term, they
appropriated it, and the hence OSI cant get trade mark certification for
'Open Source'. The actual term the OSI use for their licences is 'OSI 
Certified'.

'Open Source' is just a label that is up for grabs.

so...why not just use 'Open Source'. Using another term, like 'open
content' just confuses the issue doesnt it? I mean, 'Open Source' was a
marketing ploy...it gets the message across, so why bother splitting hairs
about whether it applies to code or plain text? Isnt it better to just
jump on the existing marketing bandwagon instead of starting a new one up
from (almost) scratch?

adam



Adam Hyde
radioqualia.net
Free as in 'media'

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Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2003 17:15:50 +0200
From: auskadi <auskadi@tvcabo.co.mz>
Subject: Re: <nettime> opencontent.org dissolves and stalls its licenses

Felix,

thanks for the comments ... I don't take issue with the following just suggest
that it is better in the places we are/work/live that we don't put all the eggs
(licences) in one basket... it might be a pain to have to look around at the
various licences but the more the merrier as eash according to his needs etc
etc ....

>it doesn't invalidate the CC licenses in any way. They are still 
>useful and it seems better to me to have one place that offers a few 
>easy-to-customize licenses than having to read through the 2O plus licenses 
>listed on opensource.org, or trying to figure out the difference between the 
>OpenContent license and the GNU Free Documentation license.

But maybe out of this Florian has scratched an itch insofar as people do 
seem to have some misunderstandings of what a licence is and how it is 
effective. For example where I come from alicence doesn't even have to 
be written down (it makes it easier to rmemebr what the terms are but 
thats a matter of evidence not whether its legally effective). As I 
alluded to for me we should really talk about moving away from rules as 
such to the repetition of some purpose/ethical idea that underlies these 
licences and try and formulate/propagandise that.

Hieko, this is the equity lawyer side of me ... so for me I hope this 
exchange continues.

nice looking site Felix, I just glanced at it I will do soem more in 
depth perusing tomorrow

Martin

Felix Stalder wrote:

>On Tuesday 01 July 2003 17:06, Florian Cramer wrote:
>
>>As a lecturer in the humanities and net activist who has been
 <...>
>
>On Wednesday 02 July 2003 08:17, auskadi wrote:
>
>>When I first read this series of postings the lawyer (Heiko read "common
 <...>
>If this move from OpenContent to CreativeCommons would have been done a bit 
 <...>

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