[odc-discuss] version 1.1 of OdBL?

[Jordan S Hatcher]

On 16 Jul 2010, at 20:28, Rufus Pollock wrote:

>> On the latter point there is little I can do. On the former point,
>> researcher concern is "anyone can take my work, build on it, i won't get the
>> credit and may lose the opportunity to be funded to further develop the
>> work".
> 
> I think here we want to distinguish between attribution requirements
> (provided by both ODC By and ODC ODbL/BySA) and share-alike provided
> by ODC ODbL/BySA.


On attribution, I think it is particularly important to highlight the role of norms within the research / academic community.  Citation requirements (such as for journals) and the both written and unwritten rules around plagiarism all help contribute to people properly attributing work without the need for a formal legal license (at least among researchers/academics, which is the primary audience for other researchers/academics).  

I think people often focus too narrowly on thinking that they have nothing unless they have a formal legal stick to bring to bear.  Even within open licenses, norms are a particularly important and powerful part of both enforcement of the licenses and even help build a consensus view of what the licenses mean (especially as many, such as the GPLv2, can be ambiguous in many contexts).

Thanks

~Jordan

____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM

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