Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Content which forbids derivied works is not anymore free content than content you can use but not distribute. Both are without cost, both deny you what would be considered natural rights without copyright,
The Wikimedia Foundation maintains archives of its own mailing lists, for example this one. Is that free contents? Should I be allowed to modify and distribute the record of what you said?
Suppose Google's big Usenet archive or the site Gmane.org had to close down, and the Wikimedia Foundation could take over the contents. That's where I think a CC-ND license could make sense.
Recently I've been looking into MusicBrainz.org, where the core database of CD albums, tracks, and artists is released into the public domain ("the product"), but data relating to the user community ("the factory") is released under a Creative Commons license that only allows non-commercial (NC) use.
This makes me wonder if Wikipedia user and talk pages really need to be released under exactly the same license as the main article namespace. I don't remember that this was analyzed. User pages were just introduced (in 2002) without talks of licensing. And I don't think anybody discussed the licensing for the mailing list archives, which are indeed very close to user page discussions.
This also reminds me of Erik Möller's Kuro5hin posting "Creative Commons -NC Licenses Considered Harmful", http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655 where some of the reader comments made me realize that there can be cases where NC makes sense, and other cases where it is harmful. Maybe the same goes for ND.
Are we trying to force every foot into the same shoe here?