FAQ 2015

What is OSE's position on Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses? might be the best fit for your work. You could be foundational in helping this license build steam! Check it out: http://commonstransition.org/commons-based-reciprocity-licenses/

I’d love to hear back what you think of this.

Taylor

Marcin February 18, 2015 at 5:43 am | Edit | Reply Philosophically, OSE doesn’t agree with Reciprocity Licenses allowing companies paying so they do not have to share. This is not consistent with creating a culture of open collaboration and sharing, as embodied in open source licenses. Practically, the reciprocity license terms appear to have unclear distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ users. We agree with the general critique presented by http://blog.runtux.com/2014/05/28/242/. Our own comments on non-commercial clauses are here – http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Why_OSE_Doesn%27t_Support_the_Use_of_Creative_Commons_Non-Commercial_Licenses. If ‘appropriation for the anti-commons capitalist economy’ is the issue, having corporations buy themselves out of sharing does not address such appropriation. In fact, allowing corporations to buy themselves out of being good citizens can promote such defection. If the companies are required to follow an open, viral license – they cannot appropriate open technology – without sharing derivatives. We want to encourage collaboration – not defection. The middle ground between open source and closed source is open source gobbling up closed source in due time – unless humanity forever remains unevolved:)