changing content licenses (OPL => CC BY SA)

[Luis Villa]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Robert 'Bob' Jensen<bob at fedoraunity.org> wrote:
>
> ----- "Robert 'Bob' Jensen" <bob at fedoraunity.org> wrote:
>> Does anyone remember why "CC BY SA" was not chosen over the OPL when
>> we went through all this a few years ago? Is this just all part of the
>> Creative Commons marketing effort? An effort that is failing for me,
>> the idea of a "CC" license is diluted and confused by all the
>> different options. It seems today everyone has to have a (CC) license,
>> soon to become the "Members Only" jacket of the early 80's?
>>
>
> I guess my question was, is this change for the sake of change? Nothing gained from how I read Richard's comment.

Two primary things gained:
* CC-SA is a much more readable, simple license than OPL. That is a
good thing in and of itself.
* if you're trying to build a real commons, where people share content
with each other and build off each other's work, it behooves you to
use a commonly used license. I've literally never seen OPL used
anywhere other than Fedora; CC-SA is one of the most broadly used
copyright licenses on the planet, especially now that Wikipedia has
dumped GFDL. As a result of the switch, Fedora doc writers will now
have access to a vast source of images and text which they can freely
use in their own writing, without worries about legal complications.

Those sound like big benefits to me.

Luis