[okfn-discuss] Open Source movie definition

Wed Apr 1 17:06:59 UTC 2009

2009/3/31 Tim Baumann <jayday at gmx.de>:
> I partly disagree. The point of the Open Source movie definiton is the
> availability of sources because film being a complex medium where many parts
> can be reused in other works only if the fhe respective source (and not the
> mashed-up final piece) is available (3d models, single shots, underlying
> music, screenplay, etc.). While the Open knowledge definiton is suitable for
> open (content) films it doesn't really require sources to be available. The
> def. of free cultural works does but as I wrote in a previous posting this
> def. is too demanding on the "free" part.

The OKD does require modifiable form, and I could definitely see
spelling out what that means for film.

What do you mean by FCW being too demanding on the "free" part?  It
makes the same demands as the OKD.

Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> I quite agree that sources are crucial. To my knowledge (though I may
> be wrong) the (open) CC licenses don't really talk about this. Of
> course for software you've always had a clear source/binary
> distinction and this has even been written into the licenses.

You're right.

> Such a distinction clearly also exists for content (pdf vs. the raw
> document from which the pdf was made). However, I think it is rather
> less agreed exactly what is source and what is binary in most areas
> (one of our retired projects from 4/5 years ago was aiming at trying
> to address this: <http://okfn.org/iai/>).

The distinction exists but is a lot fuzzier and degraded forms remain
useful for modification, just somewhat less useful, unlike software
where object code is tremendously less useful than source.

I often put a few slides on this in presentations eg
http://www.slideshare.net/mlinksva/how-far-behind-free-software-is-free-culture-presentation
but need to (am) write it up more thoroughly.

On that note, here's a fun one that I just heard about
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014758.html

> If you actually wanted something in a license the obvious approach
> here would be to mod an existing open license (e.g. CC by-sa) with an
> addendum saying: "And in addition you must make available the source
> files" (perhaps with some examples of what this would mean).

You couldn't call it a CC license and doing so would be pretty dumb as
your modified scheme would be incompatible.

Or as Rob Myers just said, it would be a logistically difficult
requirement to introduce.  It wouldn't be impossible with cooperation
of  the license creator, perhaps analogous to the AGPL in terms of
creating new requirements while maintaining some compatibility with
the existing mass of copylefted stuff in the domain.

However, copyright enforcement (ie licenses) isn't the only thing in
life.  If "open source movie" can be made to mean something (certainly
uphill), or for that matter FCW/OKD gaining a strong brand that
reusers avoid the lack of, that's a vector. Probably even more
important are creation and publishing tools that make is easy to share
source (another analogy with software services ecology).

> I think it is great you are doing something here  -- as you say clear
> definitions are needed (by the way: is it the case that archive.org
> will let you upload stuff with a CC Non-Commerical license? I thought
> that they restricted to CC by and by-sa but may be wrong).

archive.org doesn't require any license at all, they just recommend
choosing one, and don't recommend one over another.
http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#223  I'll recommend to someone
there that they recommend choosing a FCW/OKD compliant license.

Mike