[odc-discuss] Dropping PDDL in favor of CC0?

Jakob jakob.voss at s1999.tu-chemnitz.de
Wed Mar 25 10:46:47 UTC 2009


Hi!

Creative Commons launched the CC Zero (CC0) which is not exactely a  
license but a statement to put any content under Public Domain:  
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/zero/1.0/ There is a note in the  
Open Data Commons FAQ (misspelling CC0 ;-) about CC0. It says:

> CC? will be compliant with the Science Commons protocol for open data,
> as will of course the Open Data Commons. The will both be interoperable,
> so any data or content made available under either system can be  
> mixed and remixed. Unlike CC? however, the Open Data Commons system  
> includes a set of Community Norms linked with the licence.

However at http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/ the license is not  
mentioned but it is said:

> Public Domain Dedication and License
> When using the PDDL you may wish to associate a set of Community Norms.

So the Community Norms are not included by default. As far as I  
understand CC0 makes PDDL obsolete because you can add any Community  
Norms also to CC0 content (unless the norm is in fact a license). I  
think you did a good job with PDDL and promoting Open Data, but now we  
have to systems with fuzzy differences which makes publishing Open  
Data only more difficult (!). CC0 is surely more visible because  
Creative Commons is widely known and last but not least it is better  
prepared for different legal systems, not only the US.

Whenever I promote Open Data, I shifted to tell people that for Public  
Domain they should now use CC0, and PDDL is only a former method that  
was used before CC0. Are there strong arguments against dropping PDDL  
in favor of CC0?

The important thing about Open Data is the spirit of sharing and if  
CC0 can better help to spread this spirit, we should move PDDL to  
this. What do you think?

Greetings
Jakob





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