[okfn-discuss] Problems of nomenclature

Sun Mar 4 00:10:01 UTC 2012

Hi Chris and all,

Libre means free as in freedom.

The definition is well established and may be found at:

http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

and in the context of libre knowledge:

http://wikieducator.org/Declaration_on_libre_knowledge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre_Knowledge

As you know, these definitions are rooted in the free software definition:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

A libre resource either complies with the definition or it doesn't.
There is no "semi-libre" (the FSF dropped that term "semi-free" some
time ago and the libre knowledge communities I know have never used
it).

> My first problem is that I don’t have a term
> to describe libre AND semi-libre licences that
> have a copyleft-like condition.

CC-by-sa is the most pro-freedom licence in the Creative Commons suite
- it is unambiguously a _libre_ licence. The ShareAlike in this case
is an assurance of freedom into the future in the face of the current
state of copyright which came about along these lines:

http://wikieducator.org/Brief_History_of_Copyright

CC-by-nc-sa on the other hand is (among other things) an assurance of
a restriction (non-commercial use only) into the future. It is
unambiguously non-libre.

A few Libre Licences are listed here:
http://wikieducator.org/Libre_License

and the following article encourages the various "open" communities to
rather say "libre" in those cases where "libre" is actually meant -
i.e. when the licence upholds all the freedoms (e.g. when the resource
to which they are referring is licensed cc-by, cc-by-sa, cc0 or pd).

http://wikieducator.org/Say_Libre

The "open education" community, for example, includes institutions who
include the NC restriction in their licences.

Thanks

Kim

PS It will help with clarity of thinking to avoid the term "IP" (which
appeared in Chris's e-mail below):
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
we are not talking about anything that has the rivalrous properties of
"property".

PPS For software, some people say "free/libre and open" source
software (FLOSS) which cover both open and libre software -
understanding that all libre software is "open source" but some (a
very small sub-set of) open source software is non-libre.

PPPS More on Libre Knowledge:
http://wikieducator.org/Libre_knowledge

----

On 3 March 2012 13:04, Chris Sakkas <sanglorian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I’ve been trying to sort out the Wikipedia pages relating to IP minimalism
> (libre, Creative Commons, copyright reform, etc.). However, I’ve run into
> terminology problems for works, licences and concepts that straddle the
> free/libre-semi-free/semi-libre boundary.
>
> My first problem is that I don’t have a term to describe libre AND
> semi-libre licences that have a copyleft-like condition.
>
> For example, the OpenContent License is a licence that forbids commercial
> reproduction and requires copies to come under the same licence. We can’t
> describe it as copyleft because copyleft works are libre. I would call it
> ‘share-alike’, but that term seems to be used exclusively for Creative
> Commons licences. I thought about ‘reciprocal’, but references to reciprocal
> licences online seem to use the term as a synonym for copyleft (and
> therefore wouldn’t include noncommercial licences; see for example
> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-license2/). The term
> ‘viral’ seems perfect, but according to Wikipedia it’s ‘pejorative’. Maybe
> we could ‘take it back’?
>
> What about ‘share-alike-like’? (That’s a joke)
>
> My second problem is that I don’t have a term to describe libre AND
> semi-libre content.
>
> As I noted on its Wikipedia page
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content#Definition), the term ‘open
> content’ is now being used for semi-libre/semi-free licences as well as
> libre/free ones. This follows the word open’s use in ‘open access’ and ‘open
> educational resources’, but means that open content-free content no longer
> mirror each other like open source-free software do.
>
> That’s not a problem in and of itself, but it’s lead to a messy category on
> Wikipedia: ‘open content licences’ with ‘free content licences’ as a
> subcategory. Until the definition of ‘open content’ settles as either ‘libre
> content’ or ‘semi-libre and libre content’, I think we should avoid using it
> as a category. We need an unambiguous term that DEFINITELY means ‘semi-libre
> and libre content’ to use for the category as a whole.
>
> However, I’m not actually sure what that term could be. I use ‘common
> content’ myself, following from the Common Content project
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Content). However, that project is long
> gone and the term is not in wide use.
>
> So, in summary:
>
> Is there a neutral term for libre and semi-libre viral licences?
>
> Is there a term for ‘libre and semi-libre’ that we can use instead of ‘open
> content’?
>
>
> Thanks folks!
>
>
> Chris Sakkas
> Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki and the Living Libre blog and microblog.
>
>
>
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