licensing
A new conventional wisdom began to spring up around free software, led in part by theorists like Eric Raymond, who were interested in the economics of free software production. Much of this thought centered around service-based and other ancillary sales for supporting free software. Based on this kind of thinking, it’s fairly easy to imagine extending free licensing ideas to utilitarian works. But what about aesthetic works? The Creative Commons was established in 2002, largely to solve the kinds of licensing problems that aesthetic works might encounter, and it has been remarkably successful, pushing the envelope of even this newer wave of thought. Today, Creative Commons licensed works number in at least the tens of millions. And more than a quarter of those are using the free “Attribution” or “Attribution-ShareAlike” licenses.
Impossible thing #3: Free art and the Creative Commons culture
- 2008-03-06
-
Write a full post in response to this!
A new conventional wisdom began to spring up around free software, led in part by theorists like Eric Raymond, who were interested in the economics of free software production. Much of this thought centered around service-based and other ancillary sales for supporting free software. Based on this kind of thinking, it’s fairly easy to imagine extending free licensing ideas to utilitarian works. But what about aesthetic works? The Creative Commons was established in 2002, largely to solve the kinds of licensing problems that aesthetic works might encounter, and it has been remarkably successful, pushing the envelope of even this newer wave of thought. Today, Creative Commons licensed works number in at least the tens of millions. And more than a quarter of those are using the free “Attribution” or “Attribution-ShareAlike” licenses.
- Terry Hancock's posts
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- 196 reads
An open proposal for Microsoft open source certification
- 2007-08-03
-
Write a full post in response to this!
Microsoft. Open-Source Certification. This is not an April Fools, apparently. According to various news feeds (this was brought to my attention from PCWorld, but YMMV as these stories are periodic) they will be submitting some of their “shared source” licenses to the OSI. This is genuinely fantastic news, as after years of FUDing us around, they finally admit that Open Source exists, is a good thing, non-cancerous, and something with which they want to get involved. It’s also very flattering, because since they’re submitting to the OSI it tells us that they acknowledge the term “Open Source” (and by its implication “Free Software”) and that its definition is vested and controlled. By someone else.
But now they’ve built the bridge, they need to know how to cross it. There’s a cultural divide that has been fostered through the years. So listen up Microsoft, this is your next step in allowing shared source to become compatible with FOSS licenses and - more importantly - its inherent ideals!
- Steven Goodwin's posts
- 1 comment
- Read more
- 1749 reads
Sharing medical software: FOSS licensing in medicine
- 2007-06-14
-
Write a full post in response to this!
How does License Proliferation effect medical software and what can we do about it? How to choose a license for your medical software project? What are the implications for the medical FOSS community of various software licenses? This is intended to be a complete guide to free and open source software licensing for medical software. Please comment on how I can make it better.
Sharing medical software: FOSS licensing in medicine
- Fred Trotter's posts
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- 3993 reads
GPLv3 draft 3 to be released Wednesday March 28th
- 2007-03-26
-
Write a full post in response to this!
According to Bruce Perens, discussion draft 3 of GPLv3 is due to be published on Wednesday March 28th:
- Ciaran O’Riordan's posts
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- 1202 reads
MP3: nothing to do with piracy. Really.
- 2006-12-10
-
Write a full post in response to this!
Mylatest blog entry began with this paragraph:
Messing with MP3 files is, for some people, a synonym for illegal use of copyrighted music. Well, actually it’s not.
The reason I wrote that incipit remained unclear to many, that didn’t seeany link between this first phrase and the rest of the article. I therefore decided towrite a few blog entries on the subject. This time I’ll talk about theMP3 format in itself.
- Marco Marongiu's posts
- 6 comments
- Read more
- 4805 reads
Copyright, bad faith, and software licensing
- 2006-09-19
-
Write a full post in response to this!
Robin Miller recently published a story on Newsforge about “Stan”[1], as an example of a situation that demonstrates proprietary software is a danger to business continuity. I found this story interesting since I think Mr. Miller came close to correctly identifying a core issue, which is that the proprietary software business model as it exists today both facilitates and encourages vendors to act in bad faith. However, it did not need to have been this way, and really comes down to misuse of licensing along with some deliberate abuse and exploitation of existing commercial law.
- David Sugar's posts
- 6 comments
- Read more
- 6631 reads
Graphic icons
Graphic icons: symbols of authority, power and control
- 2005-05-19
- Mind set | Intermediate
-
Write a full post in response to this!
There are a lot of important and exciting discussions currently taking place around issues concerning the ownership of ideas. The thoughts and the accompanying practices surrounding the subject have been formed through a diverse range of alliances, interests and motivations. The arguments are becoming increasingly polarised into distinct methods and approaches that already challenge and govern, not only our lives and working practices, but also, our ability to communicate.
A law for free software
Don’t we have enough laws already?
Write a full post in response to this!
Free software, also known as open source, libre software, FOSS, FLOSS and even LOSS, relies on traditional software legal protection, with a twist. Semantics aside (I will describe all the above as “free software”), the tradition at law is that free software is copyrighted, like most other software, and is not released, unbridled, to the public domain. Authorial or ownership rights can be asserted as with any bit of proprietary software.
Best voted contents
-
The Bizarre Cathedral - 13
Ryan Cartwright, 2008-07-14 -
The Blender Foundation's "Big Buck Bunny" is a Peach!
Terry Hancock, 2008-07-17 -
Why sharing matters more than marketshare to GNU/Linux
Terry Hancock, 2008-08-01 -
Does anybody still develop Windows applications? Or, the programming world has gone online
Tony Mobily, 2008-07-25
Buzz authors
All news
Other sites
- The Top 10 Everything (Dave). The good, the bad and the ugly.
- Free Software news (Dave & Bridget). All about free software -- free as in freedom!
- Book Reviews: Illiterarty (Bridget). Book reviews, blogs, and short stories.
Hot topics - last 60 days
-
Don't compare GNU/Linux with Windows or MacOS - they are not in the same game
Ryan Cartwright, 2008-07-07 -
Why sharing matters more than marketshare to GNU/Linux
Terry Hancock, 2008-08-01 -
Do we have a "Vista for Dummies" yet?
Laurie Langham, 2008-07-11 -
Vienna failed to migrate to GNU/Linux: why?
Tony Mobily, 2008-06-09 -
Why did Javascript/AJAX mop the floor with Java, Flash and Silverlight? Or, why open standards eventually win
Tony Mobily, 2008-07-30
Hot topics - last 21 days
-
Why sharing matters more than marketshare to GNU/Linux
Terry Hancock, 2008-08-01 -
Why did Javascript/AJAX mop the floor with Java, Flash and Silverlight? Or, why open standards eventually win
Tony Mobily, 2008-07-30 -
Dictators in free and open source software
Tony Mobily, 2008-07-22 -
Does anybody still develop Windows applications? Or, the programming world has gone online
Tony Mobily, 2008-07-25

Dedicated server