If I create a bunch of icons, license them CC-BY-SA and send them to a developer to add to his GPL-licensed project, Debian will label that project as ‘non-free’ as per the DFSG. Why is this happening? What the fuck? Why is the CC-BY-SA considered non-free?
Secondly, am I the only one that finds the fact that I can’t possibly mix something like GFDL-licensed texts with CC-BY-SA texts stupid? Both licenses essentially mean the same thing: take my content, do what you like as long as you a) attribute and b) all derivatives are licensed under the parent license.
Someone please correct me if I’m getting this totally wrong.
*end rant*
3 comments
Can you provide the message from the Debian ftpmasters indicating that the combination of CC-BY-SA icons and GPL source code is considered non-free? There are a number of possible issues involved (CC licences before 3.0 weren’t DFSG-free, CC-BY-SA isn’t GPL-compatible, etc) but I can’t see how the conclusion could be reached that a combination of CC-BY-SA and GPL, specifically, would be non-free but distributable.
As far as the CC-BY-SA and GFDL goes, no, the two licences do not mean the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. The GFDL is a complex licence with some pretty hairy optional clauses, and is quite obviously tuned very tightly to the book publishing world. I’m not sure it would be possible to craft any sort of a “sharealike” licence which was GFDL compatible, and there’s far more likelihood of derivation with images in a document than icons in a software package.
To be honest I am kind of taking the Debian Project and its legal issues with a grain of salt. If I would be choosing between them and the FSF who I would trust more to define and interpret what Free Software is or isn’t I would rather naturally align with the FSF.
Debian sometimes just seems too bureaucratic for me, although I understand that, being such a complex and big distribution with a focus on having everything as free as possible in all possible cases (including ones we may not always anticipate) it may sometimes be necessary for them to be that way. Cheers
libervisco: The FSF says that the CC-BY-SA licence (2.0, anyway, which is the latest version they mention) is incompatible with the GPL and GFDL as well.
As far as bureaucracy, well, it comes with the territory. I can’t think of any organisations with the size and scope of Debian that are weighed down with less baggage.