New blog post

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 09:43:45AM +0300, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> On 10/15/2009 08:05 PM, Colby Hoke wrote:
> >Pamela Chestek wrote:
> >>Okay, we heard (thanks Rahul and Colby). Going forward, Red Hat videos
> >>will provide contact information for permissions, so people who want
> >>to use our videos in ways other than what the current CC licensing
> >>allows will know who to ask. For now, if you're interested in doing
> >>translations of Paul's stunning Stanislavskian performance
> >>illustrating the development path of software (or using it in some
> >>other way - the devil is whispering on my shoulder), write to
> >>messer at redhat.com.
> >
> >Hey everybody, I'd love to hear some feedback on this and we'll make
> >announcements through Paul for videos relating to Fedora where we're
> >granting extra rights. (Or you'll be able to look at the end of the
> >video and know.)
> 
> All the benefit of CC licenses over the traditional model was that
> the user does not need to ask the author for permission.
> Having a restrictive CC license and asking to user to send emails to
> require a permissive one seems a bit like returning to step one. Why
> bother with NC-ND?

Nicu,

While I think you're partly correct in that this change isn't quite
what some people were asking for, I also think it's a step forward.
The change has essentially been:

"Can we remix this non-commercially?"
   "No."
"What about now?"
   "Maybe, and here's the person to ask about that."

Saying this is a step backward because you now have to ask a question
obfuscates the point a bit. :-) Not having to ask would be helpful,
but not having the *opportunity* to ask is definitely the step back.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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