Copyleft License (GPL; GPL v3; GFDL; L-GPL; CC-by-sa; DSL; AgainstDRM) Info and Comments
Creative Commons should expand their permision dimensions. I don’t know how to make such changes user-friendly to designate (CC-by-sa or CC-by-nc-noderiv or CC-by) though.
Attribution:
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Copyright notice only
Basic credit (Name of author and/or source)
Deluxe credit (Link back to author’s site or complex crediting directions)
Deriviative Works:
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Unrestricted
Weak Share-Alike (Weak copyleft; The way CC works now)
Strong Share-Alike (Strong copyleft; Integration into a larger work requires the entire work to have this license or to have a compatible license)
Nothing (NoDeriv / No Derivitive works)
Commercial Use:
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Unrestricted
Non-profiting commercial-use only (marketing ads, catalogs, commercial web-sites ok, but no sales or other direct profit exploitation such as $50 CDs or $40/yr members-only sites or site-sections or $200/yr medical journals)
None (NonCommercial)
Extras:
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No distributing with technical obstructions to distributee’s copying ability (No-DRM)
Require source-code, source-material, or other modification-transparent copy (.html vs .chm; .doc vs .pdf; .psd vs .jpg) with distribution of verbatim or modified copies
Extend license permission-grants and restrictions through media-domain transfers (songsheet->CD recording->public performance->concert ‘cam’->concert xvid)
Comments:
My preferences are ‘basic credit’, Strong Share-Alike, Non-Profiting commercial use only, No-DRM, source/transparent copy (except digicam photos), and multi-domain rights grant/transfer. I would be flexible for copyright notice only, and full commercial use (with the hope of free-copying volume to render profiting-sales unpractical) for compatibility with the rest of the open-source / copyleft community. Their is no license to match either version really. CC-By-SA is weak copyleft and acks rights transfer, No-DRM and modifiable source or transparent content. DSL is weak copyleft and the ‘new’ name requirement is very hassling for minor changes. So far it is a toss-up between the GPLv3 (draft) and the ‘Agaisnt DRM 2.0′ license. But a generic strong copyleft license with ‘yes’ on all the columns (CopyLeft, practical modifiability, attribution, related rights, anti-drm) in the table on the FreedomDefined license page is what I’d love.
For No-DRM clauses I prefer it to only affect the ability of the distributee to re-distribute the work, with source/transparent copy (if required). The work (if software) should be able to operate a DRM scheme for data or media that it crunches, but if accompanying source code is required, it will be unpractical, as the source will be exploited and the DRM cracked in no-time (good cracking educational tool though!). The No-DRM clause should also not block the software from running a closed-source program that operates a DRM-scheme within itself (ITunes on Linux; assuming the music isn’t No-DRM copylefted). It should only pertain to the distributee’s ability to re-desitribute the direct-licensed work without the need to crack or loophole-exploit any DRM.
