[Oer-community] On-line education is using a flawed Creative Commons license

rory rory at athabascau.ca
Tue Nov 27 08:39:39 MST 2012


Stephen,
And furthermore . . .
(:-)
Rory
On 12-11-27 6:08 AM, Stephen Downes wrote:
> Hiya all,
> Again, not to pursue the argument regarding the One True License 
> beyond reason in the present forum...
> . . . .{omitted by Rory- not pertinent to this response}
> I have no objection to the mechanism whereby OERu converts OERs it 
> receives for free from volunteers into revenues for universities. What 
> I object to is the ongoing campaign by OERu staff to depict 
> non-commercial OERs as 'non-free' and to lobby for their exclusion 
> from the definition of 'free educational resources'. I wish to pursue 
> my support of OERs in such a way that does not impose significant cost 
> on students. To this date, the best and only mechanism for ensuring 
> their use of OERs remains genuinely free is through the use of the NC 
> license.
RORY>>> Not true. NC does NOT prevent commercialization. It encourages 
it. Private companies want the exclusive right to distribute so they 
license it  directly from the author a la Flatworld.  NC promotes and 
supports commercialization. People in Canada have free access to water. 
Others bottle it and people pay for it. The fact that some companies 
choose to sell it does not make water unfree. Granny can bottle her free 
water and sell it. Others can take the free water and use it gratis.

> As an aside: there is always in this context a reference to the 
> 'original' version of open source licensing, and of course Stallman's 
> four freedoms. I would like to point out that open source licenses 
> existed before GPL, and open content licenses existed before Creative 
> Commons. Until the intervention of staff from large U.S. universities 
> (Berkeley-Stanford-MIT-Harvard) these licenses required that 
> distribution be unencumbered with cost. It is only with the 
> intervention of staff from these institutions that 'free' comes to 
> mean 'commercial'.
RORY>>> CC-BY does not mean commercial. Nor does free water  (or free 
air for that matter - yes some are selling it). This is a problem among 
educational researchers who tie themselves down to a principle. The 
forget that BOTH are possible and can exist side by side. For example 
because the OERu is pursuing one model  some think that this in some way 
denigrates or restricts other models that may or may not be more open. 
BOTH or even ALL are possible.
>
> Again: people may attach licenses allowing commerical use to their 
> work if they wish. I have no objection to this. But such people should 
> /cease and desist/ their ongoing campaign to have works that are 
> non-commercial in intent, and free in distribution, classified as 'not 
> free'. Content that /cannot/ be enclosed within a paywall, and 
> /cannot/ be distributed with commercial encumbrances attached, is 
> /just as free/ - indeed, /more free/ - than so-called 'free' 
> commercial content.
>
RORY>>> Or, you may attach an NC license so that you can further 
restrict  the sale of your free content to one and only one company with 
an NC licence. Why does Flatworld insist on the NC licence for their 
content??
I, for one, shall continue to characterise NC licensed material as 
not-free - simply because content with this restriction is NOT FREE. 
Water is free you can use if as you like or you can sell it. NC 
restricted content limits the selling option to one person.

> -- Stephen
>
>
>
>
> On 2012-11-27 4:36 AM, Wayne Mackintosh wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Stephen Downes <stephen at downes.ca 
>> <mailto:stephen at downes.ca>> wrote:
>>
>>     The problem with this is the Flat World publications or the OERu
>>     assessment scenario - content deposited with the intent that it
>>     be available without cost is converted into a commercial product.
>>     It's not free if you can't access it.
>>
>>
>> Stephen, your assumption is incorrect with reference to access to 
>> learning materials and the OERu assessment model.
>>
>> The founding OERu anchors partners, as per the decisions of the 
>> inaugural meeting which was streamed live with back-channels for the 
>> open community to engage and participate in all activities agreed:
>>
>>   * to conduct all planning activities of the OERu openly and
>>     transparently in WikiEducator and you can monitor progress from
>>     the open planning portal
>>     <http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/Planning> in the wiki
>>     where all discussions are conducted with radical transparency
>>     inviting contributions from all interested parties including
>>     non-OERu members. Furthermore there are no restrictions to anyone
>>     joining the OERu open planning discussion groups
>>     <http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/Planning/OERu_Communication_technologies_and_protocols>.
>>
>>   * to develop OERu courses in WIkiEducator. To date all OER
>>     Foundation courses have been conducted openly in the wiki and all
>>     interested people of free to follow and participate in OERu
>>     courses without the requirement to register an account on any of
>>     the OER Foundation maintained websites. Moreover, the open
>>     community governance policy
>>     <http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Open_Community_Governance_Policy>
>>     of the WikiEducator community states that: "/In collaboration
>>     with WikiEducators around the world, the governance structure
>>     provides the organisational framework to support the community in
>>     the achievement of its aims, maintaining the essential freedoms
>>     of the project resources, and *making these available on the
>>     Internet in perpetuity' * -- /as a matter of public
>>     policy.  Given that WikiEducator policy requires the use of free
>>     cultural works approved licenses inclusive of the requirement for
>>     open and editable file formats, in practice this means that if
>>     ever the OER Foundation we're unable to sustain its activities
>>     financially, we would make the data base available for anyone to
>>     reuse in open and editable file formats.
>>
>> Stephen, your statement in the context of the OERu suggesting that 
>> "It's not free if you can't access it" does not hold true for the 
>> OERu collaboration.
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg>, Ph.D.
>> Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org>
>> Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic
>> Commonwealth of Learning Chair in OER, Otago Polytechnic
>> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator 
>> <http://www.wikieducator.org>
>> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
>> Skype: WGMNZ1
>> Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/Mackiwg> | identi.ca 
>> <http://identi.ca/waynemackintosh>
>> Wikiblog <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg/Blog>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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-- 
Rory McGreal
UNESCO/COL Chair in OER
Athabasca University
rory at athabascau.ca
Toll Free:1-855-807-0756


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