Hacker News Reader

Comment by _msw_ | Hacker News Reader

While the Creative Commons has a "non-commercial use" license, a work under such a license would not qualify as a "free cultural work" [1], which is the equivalent designation as Open Source Software for non-software works. Free Cultural Works give everyone the same essential freedoms that are required by the Open Source Definition.

I think when people make material available under a CC-BY-NC and call it "open source", the community should react the same way. It's neither open source, nor a free cultural work.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/fr...

View on HN

> It's neither open source, nor a free cultural work.

This is where the change needs to happen: "free culture work" and "open source" should not be conflated.

The article you linked demonstrates that the Creative Commons defines a spectrum of licenses [1]. The OSI should as well. They could then "approve" the BSL the same way the Creative Commons "approves" the NC licenses.

It would be better for the OSI to stay ahead of this rather than ignore or fight it. They could then champion their own definition of the software license spectrum rather than risk losing control of it.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/cc_li...

The mission of OSI and the mission of Creative Commons are related, but that doesn't mean that the OSI should do everything that Creative Commons has done.

The overlap in mission between the OSI and Creative Commons is the "approved for free cultural works" label [1]. This came about during collaborations between the members of the Free and Open Source Software community and Creative Commons leadership in 2006. [2]

Software licenses with restrictions are nothing new or novel. From my perspective, "accepting" them isn't staying ahead, it's stepping backwards on a mission that has been a quarter century in the making.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/2008/02/20/approved-for-free-cul...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_Free_Cultural_Wo...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com