[freeroleplay] Free Content Definition

[Ricardo Gladwell]

On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 15:25 -0700, Jerry Stratton wrote:
> I'm personally very tied to "and a useful source must be available in a
> non-proprietary format". I can see where that's impractical for some
> sources, but it's a restriction on modification and redistribution that I
> want--I don't want downstream files to require expensive or unavailable
> software.

As I read it the definition does not explicitly require transparency but
neither does it exclude it: which parts of it are you thinking of?

Like the FSF, we allow further restrictions that ensure the freedoms are
kept, as in copyleft or transparency clauses. This isn't stated
explicitly in the definition, but what applies on the free software
definition page[1] should similarly apply to our page.

> It might be useful to add that the reasonable source is the source that is
> easiest for others to make use of, or something like that. And that
> whichever source is chosen must be usable by others in some useful way.
> The designated source must allow for access.

I'd rather hoped I had already done that by requiring that the source is
in a form "practical for making modifications." Unfortunately, for many
media, there still aren't any open standard formats or FLOSS software
tools, and there may never be, which is something we need to consider if
we make it a core requirement.

But I'd be interested to know what precise wording would you prefer for
the definition?

> I think you may want to think about precisely what you want downstream
> users to be able to do with an open physical item, and how that differs
> from simply returning the physical item's copyrightable portion into the
> public domain.

I suppose we want what we have always wanted: the ability to make and
distribute copies or derivatives of the work, whether that be copied
sculptures, photographs, 3D meshes or what have you. A free content
license is, of course, only as strong as the copyright and related
rights laws that govern it's medium. The weaker those laws the weaker
the license but the more freedom we have to use the work regardless. The
stronger the laws, the stronger the license and so we still get the
freedom to use the work.

> For example, if you make an open sculpture, and I take that and make a 3-D
> image of that sculpture using 3-D rendering software, what if anything am
> I expected to provide to downstream users?

That isn't so much of a problem: by changing the nature of the work from
a sculpture to a digital work, in this case a 3D mesh, your
responsibility is now to distribute a copy of the 3D mesh in whatever
format can be considered the source for 3D meshes. Just because you are
not required to distribute the source for non-digital works like
sculptures does not mean that the exemption carries over to it's
derivative digital works like 3D meshes. The definition itself is not a
copyleft license.

Kind regards...

[1] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html

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