The OPL proved to be one of the key components, along with the Free Software Foundation’s GNU licence, in the development of the Creative Commons licences by Larry Lessig and others in 2002 (Geere 2011). These addressed some of the issues of the open content licence and went on to become essential in the open education. The simple licences in Creative Commons (CC) allow users to easily share resources and isn’t restricted to software code. The user can determine the conditions under which it can be used – the default is that it always acknowledges the creator (CC-BY), but further restrictions exist, such as preventing commercial use without the creator’s permission (CC-NC). The Creative Commons licences are permissive rather than restrictive. They allow the user to do what the licence permits without seeking permission. They don’t forbid other uses, such as commercial use for a CC-NC licence; they simply say you need to contact the creator first. These licences have been a very practical requirement for the OER movement to persuade institutions and individuals to release content openly, with the knowledge that their intellectual property is still maintained.
The direct connection to Tim O’Reilly segues into the next influential development, as it was O’Reilly who coined the term ‘web 2.0’.
Web 2.0
Although it is a phrase that has now been through the peak of popularity and passed into history, the web 2.0 phenomenon of the mid ’00s had a significant impact on the nature of openness in education. The term was used to recognise a growing development in the way in which people were using the web. It wasn’t a deliberate movement, but rather a means of distinguishing the more read/write, user-generated nature of a number of tools and approaches.
