Add Creative Commons licenses

[afeld]

The site only includes CC0, but would be great to include the others, or explain why (if?) they aren't appropriate for software projects.

[benbalter]

From the Creative Commons FAQ:

Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software?

We do not recommend it. Creative Commons licenses should not be used for software. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed at the Open Source Initiative. Unlike our licenses, which do not make mention of source or object code, these existing licenses were designed specifically for use with software. Furthermore, our licenses are not compatible with the GPL, the most frequently used free software license.

Note that the CC0 Public Domain Dedication is GPL-compatible and acceptable for software. For details, see the relevant CC0 FAQ entry.

[haacked]

I agree, the Creative Commons site has a great license chooser for licensing non-code works. We ended up replacing CC0 in favor of the simpler UNLICENSE.

[afeld]

Sounds like it's more appropriate for #13 then. Thanks!

[eric-brechemier]

@haacked I understand the rationale for software, but I see a confusion between the goals stated and the actual usage on GitHub.

Since this repository is also used as a basis for the drop-down to select a license for new repositories on GitHub (GitHub support redirected me here), some of the Creative Commons license should be included: GitHub repositories are created for documentation, presentation slides, books, data sets and web sites (including choosealicense.com) for which Creative Commons licenses are a good match.

While the "No Derivative" options do not make sense for GitHub (no fork allowed), at least the most popular Creative Commons licenses should be included:

• CC-BY: Attribution
• CC-BY-SA: Attribution Share Alike
• CC-BY-NC-SA: Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike

Also, CC0 is recommended over Unlicense by the FSF for Public Domain:

If you want to release your work to the public domain, we recommend you use CC0.
CC0 also provides a public domain dedication with a fallback license,
and is more thorough and mature than the Unlicense.
— https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Unlicense

[iamnewton]

I see that this issue is closed, by @haacked, but this last point by @eric-brechemier seems a valid one. Any discussion on this?

[ghost]

Also, if I choose to fork a project on Github that is already using CC3.0, I am required to maintain that same license for the derivative work, and thus it would be nice to have that option as a drop-down when creating a new repository.

[ghost]

@hometot If you refer to CC0 or CC-BY 3.0, you're not required to keep the derivative work under the same license. OTOH, when you fork a project on Github, your fork has all files including the license of the original repository anyway, so it keeps it by default.

[davidamichelson]

I'd like to second the comment by @eric-brechemier. It seems counter-intuitive for github to limit the licenses available just because the imagined use case is for executable code. Github is also an excellent tool for storing encoded data (such as XML). The CC 3.0 licenses are a good fit for such non-executable code. Please add them as a default choice for a repository. (Afterthought: Given that Github now is used for hosting websites, it is a given that repositories will contain data/content that would take CC type licenses, so the choices should be updated to reflect that reality).

[haacked]

It seems counter-intuitive for github to limit the licenses available just because the imagined use case is for executable code.

Let's be clear, we're not limiting anything. You're free to put any license you want in there. We're just making it easier to add a software license. Consider the previous state of the world when we did nothing. I think what we do today is strictly better.

I agree that having CC licenses in the license chooser would be great. I think that's mostly a GitHub UX issue though. I'll re-open this so we can track it, but until we have time to come up with an approach on the GitHub.com side of things, we'll keep this tightly focused on code.

[davidamichelson]

@haacked Thank you, you are right that it is not really limited sorry to imply that (one can do as I did and make their own license file and paste in the CC 4.0 text. The convenience of having it in the chooser would be nice though. Thanks!

[haacked]

The convenience of having it in the chooser would be nice though. Thanks!

I hear you. :) I'll look into it. Can't promise it'll happen soon, but I think it's something I'd like to have happen eventually.

[eric-brechemier]

Consider the previous state of the world when we did nothing. I think what we do today is strictly better.

@haacked No doubt about that. I'll jump on the occasion to thank GitHub again for making open source development so much better.

The problem was largely compounded by the lack of plain text versions of Creative Commons licenses: the legal version of licenses relies heavily on HTML formatting, and it is unclear whether the preamble and disclaimer are part of the license text or not.

I just discovered today however, that Creative Commons has finally published a plain text version for 4.0 licenses, hooray to @mindspillage and @vthunder!

cc-archive/legalcode-pre-2014-06-26#2
https://github.com/creativecommons/legalcode

They are still a little hard to find though, which is where GitHub might chip in?

[haacked]

That's excellent! Good to know.

[mindspillage]

Glad the plaintext versions are helpful, and happy to see the licenses included! To clarify, the preamble and disclaimer are not part of the license--they are included in the license files CC publishes, but while CC has committed not to change the legal code itself after publication, this material may change. (It is also permissible to omit them, but we recommend against it.) What is and isn't part of the license is noted at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Legal_code for reference.

[daenney]

Since it's possible to host static content, like a blog or ducmentation through Github Pages I think the other CC licenses should be added to the drop down.

There's also people using Github to collaboratively write books and such.

[eric-schleicher]

we also have a desire to attach CC-BY-SA licensing to some of our static content, documentation and manuuals. would be nice to have this supported natively. gitHub isn't just for software.

[boucains]

I'm going to add my vote for CC licenses as well. I have text and informational-website content that is licensed CC-BY-SA.

I understand that this is a lower priority, but it's also low-hanging fruit and easy to include.

[mlinksva]

Per our new explicit criteria two CC licenses are eligible to be added, should anyone wish to work on a pull request to do so.

+-----------------+----------------------------------+
|                 License: cc-by-4.0                 |
+-----------------+----------------------------------+
| SPDX ID         | CC-BY-4.0                        |
| SPDX Name       | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 |
| OSI approved    | No                               |
| FSF approved    | No                               |
| OD approved     | Yes                              |
| Current license | No                               |
+-----------------+----------------------------------+
| Eligible        | Yes                              |
+-----------------+----------------------------------+

+-----------------+----------------------------------------------+
|                     License: cc-by-sa-4.0                      |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------+
| SPDX ID         | CC-BY-SA-4.0                                 |
| SPDX Name       | Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 |
| OSI approved    | No                                           |
| FSF approved    | No                                           |
| OD approved     | Yes                                          |
| Current license | No                                           |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------+
| Eligible        | Yes                                          |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------------+

[RasmusMalver]

I'd like to express my support for adding CC licences, despite Creative Commons themselves discourating it (thank you for the link, @benbalter). The very simple reason is this: All three of the suggested licenses on Choose a License (and most of the other available ones) are based upon and focused on the american “copyright” principle. I know it's been spread across the globe, but I'm not really concerned with ownership of the code and monetary profit thereof.

But I am vain, so I just want to be accredited as the original author / creator / idea-man of a repository. Which is what the non-commonwealth countries right of author-laws are based on / focused on, and which is what Creative Commons have tried to introduce to the americans.

[daenney]

@rasmis It's already been added, see PR #353

[RasmusMalver]

@daenney Oh. But it's not in the drop-down-box and it's not possible to add it when opening a repository. That's how I got here. I looked at it, and googled “github cc-by-sa”. After reading this thread and posting my reply, I chose the GNU and altered the generated license file.

[boelle]

i could use the creative common in the license picker too

i have a repro that is both software and hardware...

[geyerbri]

@zlocorp I too have that issue with trying to use CC BY-NC-SA-4.0 and it not being recognized.

[boelle]

@haacked could we have this issue open again

people have given very good reasons for allowing CC license's to be an option

[dionyziz]

I'd like to license the projects for my papers (which are in LaTeX) under Creative Commons. I know I can do this manually, but it would be convenient to have it as a license choice. If you don't want software engineers to be confused about the suitability of Creative Commons to their software repositories, you can only display the Creative Commons license if the major language of the repository has been detected to be LaTeX.

[msklvsk]

CC-BY-SA-4.0 gets recognized, but its non-commercial counterpart CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 does not. It is arguably more important for non-commercial licenses to be shown in a nice digestible github way.
It seems to be a benbalter/licensee issue.

[fharper]

Would love to have CC included in the choices.

[alexis-michaud]

@mlinksva Would you consider re-opening the issue, or pointing to a new space where this topic is being discussed? There are quite a lot of relevant comments that would deserve to be addressed, not?

[Muffo]

I agree this should be reopened.

[alexis-michaud]

Licenses that don't allow commercial use of their work is an appreciated attribute.

There is a range of Creative Commons licences. The one you (@garricode) cite allows commercial uses (this is the most permissive license: ZERO) but all the licenses that contain the mention 'NC' (non-commercial) do not allow commercial uses. So it would really be useful to have CC licenses offered: the full range (CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC-ND, etc).

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

[Epistol]

Adding my piece to it, not all repos are software only, I made a repo with my blog articles and wanted to set up a creative common no commercial use (you can guess why).

[TomBrien]

Also wanting to strongly suggest that CC BY-NC-SA-4.0 and non-commercial licences be bought into the scope of this project. GitHub is a leading platform for development of scientific manuscripts and also documentation projects. In these cases something like CC BY-NC-SA-4.0 is often the desired licence and GitHub should support the clear displaying of the licence.

Furthermore, I would suggest that GitHub should actually clearly display ALL standard licence SPDXs. All Creative Commons licences are clearly standard. To discourage the use of some licences, specifically non-commercial licences, sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

[davidak]

GitHub is a platform for open source development. Licenses which restrict the usage like non-commercial licences are not open source. It's extremely dangerous to not differentiate them. It prevents collaboration across projects.

[TomBrien]

I agree somewhat with the comment about open source although as above I don’t think it’s the right definition.

There is a very large difference between not differentiating and not mentioning any non-commercial licences on a website which sets out to help people make an informed decision when choosing a licence.

Actually having had a think on this I think what I’m after is actually a clearer differentiation between content distributed with a NC licence.

[Merovex]

Github has not been solely about open source for some time now. It is owned by Microsoft. As with any good platform, it has outgrown its original intent if it was ever intended only for open source.

It's disappointing that this has been closed for seven years during that evolution, and it appears there is no interest in reviving it.

[johentsch]

This is still an issue. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 is not displayed and cannot be shown as a shield/badge.

[lorib55xx]

I tried to add , please check to see if I applied it correct. Thank you for your time Lori

…

On Wed, May 19, 2021, 2:57 PM Johannes Hentschel ***@***.***> wrote: This is still an issue. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 is not displayed and cannot be shown as a shield/badge. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#33 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AT46B7WIIUSBW2UZW3XEP3TTOQCYTANCNFSM4AGRH4YA> .

[johentsch]

Thank you. I don't know what you applied or what you wanted me to try but for me nothing has changed.

[romain-jacob]

People here may find this repo interesting as a work-around for CC licenses on GitHub:
https://github.com/santisoler/cc-licenses

[craff]

I use github for documents (latex, markdown, ...) which do not contain code, in which case it makes sense to propose all creative common, may be with a disclaimer that they are for a non code project.

[ajsteinmetz]

People here may find this repo interesting as a work-around for CC licenses on GitHub: https://github.com/santisoler/cc-licenses

Apologies in keeping a zombie thread alive, but thank you for the repo. That was helpful for my LaTeX project.

And to add my voice, I'd like to see CC added to the templates (distinguished from software licenses), though I am happy that GitHub recognizes CC when properly placed in a LICENSE file. Perhaps to keep the two kinds of licenses separate, perhaps there should be two template buttons side-by-side when you create a new LICENSE file:

• Software License Templates
• Media (Documents, images, etc...) License Templates

That's keep the two dropdown lists separate and from cluttering each other without adding too much overhead or UX headaches for GitHub.

[neitsab]

It was my first time in a while creating a repo on GitHub, and it was for a non-code project (an "awesome-..." list).

I was quite surprised to see only CC0 was offered. I didn't want place my work in the public domain, so I had to skip adding a license while I was looking for info on how to add CC-BY-SA to Github (the "GPL equivalent" in Creative Commons land).

As GitHub is used for much more than just code those days, it would seem logical to offer licenses matching those projects needs as well, as CC0 isn't a satisfying license for most use cases.

Please add a toggle to configure code/non-code repo and a few more CC licenses! 🙏🏻