SolaRoof | Open Source Disclosure

I have been using the Creative Commons Public License at our Wiki but I am quite concerned that it is not the right framework for building our community and encouraging collaboration. Due to the conversation with Andrius I now understand that CC presents it's "legal code" as a spectrum from "all rights reserved" to "public domain" - but this is not true. There is no spectrum; there is a legal and violent path; or there is an ethical path that is based on kindness and respect. The other side cannot offer us a definition of what PD means. We need to do this for ourselves or else PD is tainted with legalism. This note will add a bit more information about this significant development (it is a big leap for me):

This subject has been an issue of some concern and it is one of those fundamental ethical principles that we need to understand correctly and apply as best we can. It does not help that there is much confusion surrounding our ethical and moral rights in our work as contrasted to the legalistic processes of Intellectual Property Law that is the basis of exploitation and abusive monopolies. I had some discussion with Franz when he was here and last night I talked by phone with Andrius about the problems the we both have with the Creative Commons and the Public Domain definitions (also with Reference to the Open Source Definition). There is also a great resource - the Union for the Public Domain - where we may find some help to move to the next level: Ethical Public Domain. This new definition will eliminate the negative and oppressive feature of the legal public domain that declares:

"Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of the Dedicator's heirs and successors."

In the Ethical Public Domain Definition? there is no statement like the above that will ensure harm upon the dedicator, rather there is a reverse of this statement that "ethically and morally (but not legally) calls upon the users of the work to voluntarily consider the conditions for use specified by the author of the work to be binding so long as the user finds a benefit and if a payment is called for the user should respond to the author or "Pay It Forward" to the heirs or community in which the author works or lived".

Creating our own Ethical Public Domain Definition will free us from the legalistic approach to creative works. The current PD definition drives authors into the legal copyright system because of the legal system presupposes that all people will act without ethics if force of law is not present. By this false assumption they push us into a tangled legal net and gain our permission to bring their guns into our lives.

I hope that these thoughts will help the discussion - Rick

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This is my first text written one year ago (about January 2004):

Open Source Disclosure is about sharing rather than hoarding information. It provides access to the orginal source material so that others can build on that. The information disclosed is probably not public domain since a grant of information to the public domain requires a specific declaration; in general, every original work that you may produce is automatically accorded copyright protection—even if it is published. Patent rights are different; the publication of such information can be a bar to obtaining a patent and therefore more discretion is advised if you believe information is patentable but you have not yet applied for patent protection.

Open Source is compatible with the concepts of Intellectual Property, or "IP" and disclosure for sharing of your IP with others has nothing to do with giving away your creative works. These Original Works? remain the property of the Author or Authors and thus you have a right to say how your IP is used by those receiving the information. At this Sola Roof Wiki we do that in a general way through the Creative Commons Public License and additionally through a further development of this legal framework by our unique Sola Roof CCPL? which we would like to compose in collaboration with the Creative Commons?.

Here are some resources to learn more about Open Source

• http://www.opensource.org/
• http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/opensource.shtml

We hope to see extensive discussions on this subject - especially since there are few developments of Open Source communities that are focused on technology developments. Other communities have developed frameworks for software development and performing arts and writing and graphic works.

The legal framework for science and technology collaboration is in a early stage of development, therefore we in the Solaroof community are in a position to pioneer some of these urgently needed new concepts.

More on this important topic later - but if you have some thoughts on the subject please feel free to jump in by linking to this page. Introduce your idea and create a Wiki Word? link to a full description or even a question or creative idea on this topic. You can also post links and quote information from other sources, but do please provide the source and author(s) if your contribution is not your own work.