[Oer-community] UNESCO and OER Foundation join hands in building capability in OER

[Stephen Downes]

Totally agreed with David Wiley: "It would be great if the world were 
simple enough that One License to Rule Them All could exist, but it 
doesn't."

It needs to be recognized that for many people, 'open' and 'free' do not 
mean 'commercial'. For many people, the idea of 'selling a free 
resource' is a contradiction in terms. For many people, access to the 
resource, rather than making money from it, is the primary concern.

I don't wish to continue restating this (though it seems the campaigning 
from the CC-by people against NC is endless). I would simply urge UNESCO 
to respect the wishes of those people who are not commercial publishers 
or multi-million-dollar educational institutions, to recognize the 
intent of people creating NC-licensed resources to ensure they can be 
accessed /for free/, and to recognize resources licensed with a NC 
clause as OERs with equal standing.

This is consistent with the 2012 Paris declaration, which I remind 
people, refers to OERs as "teaching, learning and research materials in 
any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or 
have been released under an open license that permits *no-cost access*, 
use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited 
restrictions." (My emphasis)

-- Stephen



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