[freeroleplay] Free Content Definition

[Ricardo Gladwell]

Dear All,

After the failure of the Freedom Defined project (which I posted about
earlier, as you may recall) to come to an agreement on a reasonable
definition of free content, I took matters into my own hands and have
been working on a new definition that works for all kinds of media, even
non-digital works. The draft version is here:

http://fileserver/notes/doku.php?id=free_content_freedoms

I have tried to craft it as a "super-set" of the free software freedoms.
They are closely based on the free software freedoms, but with several
modifications detailed in the explanatory notes on the same page. This
included a definition of "source" to cover the problem of having a more
general definition of source code for all kinds of works.

IMHO there are still a few problems with the definition:

     1. The freedom to adapt a work to your needs still does not make
        sense for non-modifiable works such as sculptures. Do we need it
        given Freedom 4?
     2. Source requires only "practical" modifications: does this go far
        enough? Does it pass the PDF test, i.e. does it exclude PDF only
        distribution?
     3. Source is now only required "where reasonable" so as to provide
        an exemption for works where "source" doesn't make sense or is
        impractical (i.e. free content sculptures). Could this proviso
        be abused?
     4. The "where reasonable" proviso seems to directly contradict the
        "precondition" part of the source requirement.

As always, your thoughts, suggestions and comments are as always
gratefully received. I'd really appreciate your input so we can create a
sound definition we can all sign up to.

Kind regards...

-- 
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free RPG Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president at freeroleplay.org