Open Content and the Non-Commercial License
2 min read
Over the last several weeks, I've spent some time reviewing how open content is released and licensed on the web.
In this review, I was pleasantly surprised to find fairly widespread use of the Non-Commercial license among some of the larger players.
CK12 textbooks are licensed under a Non-Commercial license. Ditto for Yale. And has anybody heard of this place called MIT? Heck, even Khan is doing it.
(For the curious, CK12, Yale, and Khan all share the licensing info in the footers of their sites).
Given that there has been much debate over licensing over the years (and a recap of the more recent one is available here) it's nice to see that some of the larger players are making this entire question moot.
It's also worth pointing out that using a non-commercial license does not preclude commercial use; it only means that someone who wants to use the resource commercially needs to get permission. For those who are concerned about protecting the rights and preserving the intentions of contributors and authors, this is a very good thing.
For those looking to learn more about the various details of Creative Commons licenses, The Value of Copyleft provides a good starting point.
