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ESR Writes About O'Reilly and FSF Differences
dopplex writes: "Over here at Linux Today, Eric S. Raymond has written an amusing piece in which A.) He analyzes the way in which we use the word freedom, B.) Examines the point of view of both O'Reilly and the FSF on 'freedom' and C.) Coins the term 'flerbage,' which I hereby suggest be put into immediate use, just because it's a really cool word." It's cheesy but it is a good way for people to understand the difference between Open Source and Free Software. (Oh, and I figured I'd just mention that I'll never use that F word since I think its stupid)
Shouldn't that be "GNU/LINUX Today"...?
;)
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
...I disagree that open source developers should stop talking about freedom. We all accept that even though flerbage sounds nice, it will not go into the mainstream as a term. "Open source," as a term, is *far* more vague than "free software." Although the OSI defines Open Source in such a way that it's much like free software, the term itself is easy to use to describe entirely limited proprietary software where you happen to get to see the source code.
Although ESR makes valid points about the FSF perhaps going overboard in wanting to outlaw the use of proprietary software licenses, it is important to stress that freedom of use for the users is in fact what distinguishes non-proprietary software from proprietary software. For that reason, I agree with Bruce Perens that we need to keep talking about freedom-- even if we don't all agree 100% about exactly what it means.
-Rob
I think the author did that nicely himself; flerbage count in the article: fourteen.
He has neatly summarized my problem with Stallman, the FSF and the GPL. The big problem with Stallman is that he believes that users should have power over programmers, which I find absurd. The programmers are the creator of the work, and thus should have the "freedom" (there's that word again) to choose how their work is used.
It seems like the height of tyranny for an ungrateful rabble of users to in essence say, "Thanks for creating this product that we find useful. However, that's not damn good enough. It's not enough for us to have the freedom whether to use your product or not, you should be required to develop your software according to OUR requirements."
I hate to borrow from Libertarian philosophy, but a right is not a right if you require coercion of another person.
I also look forward to hearing Stallman's response to whether they would be in favor of laws enforcing software "freedom" GPL-style.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm not normally on Stallman's side. I think he's a lunatic who wants to give Linux a less catchy name just to get his rocks off.
But I'm definitely on his side inasmuch as I don't think that there should be an information economy. Or rather, I think that all information of all kinds should be owned by all people -- and that nobody should be able to hide information of any kind for any reason. I know that there are a billion practical pitfalls (some of them very large indeed) for this position which makes it very dangerous, unprofitable, naive, stifling to innovation and any other word you might think of.
But in my gut, I know that not only does information want to be free -- it must be free, owned by all of the people everwhere, in order for me to feel at ease. Information is just too powerful to be controlled by the few -- and yet under our current system, the more powerful the information, the fewer the people who are likely to have access to it. Somehow I know this is bad. Rational, irrational, I don't care. I don't want flerbage (was that the word?). I don't want freedom for the information makers. I want freedom for all would-be information-users and for those who would be affected by such information. I want freedom for everyone to have and to hold any information made and to use it as they will.
Yes, yes, I know... But it's a very strong gut feeling that I'll never lose. It's almost what I'd call the sense of info-entitlement. Anyway, I'm putting my "logic cap" back on now that I've had my irrational moment of gut feeling, and I'm putting my flame-retardant suit on as well...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"Stallman" is starting to sound a little too much like "Stalin" for my tastes.
It is my property, I can and will choose a license that fits MY needs as a developer.
And like it or not, proprietary licenses DO foster innovation on a corporate scale. I'm not saying free licenses don't foster innovation - but they do so at a different level - the community level... and companies (and individuals) have to get paid. I gotta keep food on my table SOMEHOW! is RMS/FSF going to send me a check every month? Or is that the government's job? This is sounding more and more like communism/socialism.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
This sentence has one nonstandard English flerbage.
Is there some deeper point I'm missing?
The author of the article happly ignores one monkeywrench: economics.
The rules of economics aren't "laws," just predictors of how people will behave to further their interests. Unfortunately, the predictions of economics imply a necessary reduction of our "flerbage" in the case of a monopoly.
Specifically, ESR carries the libertarian mantle blind to the "Network Effect" of proprietary software that makes the Windows Monopoly so powerful. By flouting standards Microsoft makes their proprietary software more valuable because there is no adequate substitute in the marketplace. They have an interest in breaking campatibility with all but their own products or those they sanction in order to maintain and strengthen their monopoly (ignoring government regulation or anti-trust lawsuits that modify their behavior).
The Network Effect means that my flerbage is certainly decreased in the case of proprietary software. Microsoft operates in their best interest to break compatibility, and in order to do business I am forced to purchase their product whenever they do. My choice appears "flerb," but is really "double-plus-unflerb" because of economics. Sure, I'm free to use linux, it's just that I have to expend by precious time and resources circumventing Microsoft's artifical barriers to compatibility. That's not flerb at all.
I'm not sure if this is endemic to the libertarian view, but from my standpoint being forced to do something by the market is just as bad as being forced to do it by the government. Sure, the market can't put me in "prison" with "guns" but it sure feels like it when I don't have any *actual* choice.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Towards the end of the article, Raymond attacks RMS and the FSF saying "Hypothetically, if they could pass a law that would make proprietary software illegal, they would". A hypothetical condition which has never even been discussed before being the basis for discrediting what they have to say???
Also, let's even say that such a law was passed. He doesn't address the moral idea of whether or not restricting other people's freedom to software is a bad thing or not. He just says it doesn't affect his "flerbage" because nobody is going to kill him because of proprietary software. The reason a law against proprietary software (if it ever happened - which it won't) would happen is because restricting other people's freedom is bad. You have the freedom to do what you want, but you don't have the freedom to restrict the freedom of others.
For Raymond, it seems like everything is framed in a nonsense libertarian world where the primary fear is of getting your ass kicked, shot, and thrown in jail. He makes up the term "flerbage" which no one has agreed to, yet assumes the reader implicitly agrees to it and uses it as a basis to attack others. If I were to come up with a new term and attach something that I liked to that term, would you think of it as a valid arguing style if I were to then use that term which no one necessarily agrees with to beat my opponents over the head?
This essay was just silly. Talking in the end about whether or not the FSF are "safe neighbors". Before considering issues of intellectual property law, it sounds to me like Raymond needs to consider things lower in Maslow's heirarchy of needs, since he seems overly concerned with hypothetical laws beating, shooting, and imprisoning him.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Correct, and ESR opposes the DMCA for that and other reasons.
so you had do spend a lot of money even if you would have prevered to write the code yourself... so that also affectes your "flerbage"
No it doesn't. You voluntarily chose to use the proprietary hardware. You have the option of building your own hardware or reverse engineering it (ignoring the DMCA for now), so your time or property is not being taken forcibly.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Here's another parable. Some time ago, there was no such thing as copyright. If I, as a musician, say, createda song (no doubt based on the art of my time and culture) and sang to you, It would then be your song as well. You could base another song on it, or sing it to your friends. If you were nice, you might mention you heard it from me.
There was a time when we knew that no one owned the earth, that we were merely stewards of it. There was a time when we knew that no one owned ideas, we were merely their conduits.
Then some greedy bastard figured they could apply the meme of 'ownership' (which previously meant something like 'something you are carrying or sleeping in') to land. Some time later, another greedy bastard figured it could be applied to the realm of ideas.
Each time, the rest of our flerbage decreased, as a previously shared resource was made private by emminent domain. Now, the greed-mongers would have us believe that we would be decreasing their flerbage by putting things back the way they were.
Or you can just wait until MegaConglomoCorp owns all the air and charges you a fee to breath.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If you are developing software for general distribution, wouldn't you accept suggestions for improvement? I think it is perticularly libertarian to view a suggestion as a coersion.
Now, if you wrote some code, and I thought I could use it somehow else, we'll I'd like to see it changed. I might do it if the source were available and I could leave you alone... but if the source is closed (under NDA, shielded by the DMCA), then I have no recourse but to ask you to make the changes for me.
It just smacks as selfish that you'd write some reasonable code for public use and then keep the source all to yourself, not even letting me modify it for my purposes for no other reason that "gee that's coersion, somehow."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Sorry, ESR, but the flerbage nonsense is stupid. There's already a perfectly good word for that, it's called Liberty.
Proprietary software may be able to coexist with Liberty, but it will certainly take some work. The whole trend since the beginning of closed software has been for it to threaten Liberty, to eliminate it bit by bit, as quickly as it's producers believe they can get away with. The pace is ever increasing, and every time a draconian measure is abandoned because of public backlash... it returns with less fanfare a little later on.
And no, I'm not in favour of criminalising the offering of software under proprietary licenses. I don't believe the FSF is either - in that respect this article is simply an audacious straw man.
When the government uses my tax money to buy proprietary software, when it publishes public information which I am legally entitled to access, but in a form that is useless to me unless I pay microsoft their monopoly rent, my liberty is under assault. When they grant artificial monopoly privileges (software patents are one excellent example of this) and enforce them via law, this is no better than enforcing one particular license on developers would be.
Under no circumstances should tax money ever be spent on proprietary software. Under no circumstances should public information be published locked in a proprietary format. Instead of trying to break down monopolies with anti-trust law, the government should quit creating them and nurturing them in the first place.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
What the FSF would argue is, to quote Star Trek, 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'. Thus, whilst stopping people from publishing software under a proprietary license does, to some extent reduce the freedom of that induvidual (or corporate entity, etc.), it does so only in order to stop the rest of the world from having their freedom violated, namely the freedom to alter said software as one wishes.
Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the FSF; I believe it is more important for everyone to have freedom, even if it does reduce individual freedom.
Herein lies the fundamental difference between the 'Free Software' movement and the 'Open Source' movement, and the reason RMS and co get so uppity when the two terms are used interchangably.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
I can not think of any other reason why he would use a confused and twisted rethoric like that.
A law that would guarantuee software users certain rights, no matter what is stated in the license, would not imply that people who try to take away those rights from the users by releasing their software under restrictive licenses must be thrown in jail. One could compare his argument to saying that Free Speech is bad because Free Speech means you must thrown anyone who says 'Shut up!' in jail.
I have not heard of any media producer being jailed over these kinds of licensing issues even though most commercial movie and music releases here in Europe have been accompanied by notices that try to restrict the use of the media further than the fair-use provisions of our laws allow.
Here's the first and most important one: if you two could get a law passed making proprietary licenses illegal, would you do it? If their answer is "no", then the dispute with Tim is over.
I think there's another option that ESR ignores: Kuhn and Stallman would probably want proprietary licenses ruled invalid as opposed to illegal in the "haul you off to jail' sense. This ensures that no one has power over anyone else because there are no restrictions on anyone's use of any ideas. You can still offer people the license, but it would be just as valid as a contract that offers them $1,000,000.00 for the right to enslave them when they turn 30. Some "freedoms" are not worth protecting, and some contracts should never be valid.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The government probably couldnt actually outlaw a license, but they could make all the provisions that make the license what it is unenforceable. An example of an unenforceable clause was mentioned in this comment requiring someone to, say, convert to your religion as part of a contract is unenforceable; and, as a result, a contract that imposed that singular clause would become totally unenforceable.
So, if all the clauses that make proprietary licenses proprietary prohibiting copying and reverse-engineering, requiring payment for the software, etc. were made unenforceable, the proprietary license has just become as such.
Liberty in your lifetime
What about looking at some cases in real life? Proprietary licenses. Say.... Windows. Very successful. Likley due to cost, marketing and standardization of a chaotic platform long in the past. Solved a lot of problems with proprietary platforms only running 1-2 applications you needed, so you almost bought one machine per application in some situations. Seems OK for the time. Now, however, with viable alternatives, there are some things like open sourcing (NOT GPL) that may be useful if the modifications could be redistributed, but MSFT still owned the rights to the parts they feel they need to. (Asbestos enabled)
Why not GPL? Enter point number 2. BSD/Mozilla/Extend and contribute like licenses. The SCSL from SUN. Specifically, Java. If this thing was GPL'd off the bat, it would be another fragmented, proprietary implementation of a screwed up standard left in the past not unlike CDE, or even C++ in it's early life. With SUN owning a brand, and enforcing a standard that they don't actually unilaterally define, it's a workable, reliable, and standardized open platform.
Those two cases in point, one must ask WHY the GPL seems to have such problems creating the defining third case study where GPL is the only thing that worked. Well, maybe it has. Let's take Linux. If it was proprietary, it would likely be as big as CP/M about now. If it was SCSL, the buy-in by the GPL crowd would be nill, (err... null, err.. nevermind) and the corporate adoptions to the benefit of the community wouldn't have occurred.
So, we've got three broad and incomplete categories of license, and three broad and incompletely analyzed case studies showing success in each case, and why in those particular cases that license modality was the correct choice for the goals.
So bascially, I would side with Tim on the side of choice, and promote the said flerbage as the yardstick. Evolution finds optimal solutions through excessive choice. Seems to have worked out fairly well. Odd that it still resulted in the occasional individual that opposes the primary mechanism that gave rise to them. I savour the irony.
I'd love to hear why the power of choice would be a bad thing, even if you choose a proprietary license. Try and write a cheat-resistant multiplayer game with open source on both client and server, and see just how far you get before the cheats make the game unplayable except among friends. Lots of papers and discussions on that as well.
And don't raise the "web of trust" and such there RMS and cadre. Defintion of trust on that level would have removed the success of the GPL in the case of Linux, as there could be code in there that trusted people back-doored, but no one has bothered to review. Trust is perception, and perception is in it's very nature incomplete.
Sometimes you just gotta say no when someone wants your recipe. :-)
Respond with thought or not at all if you please.
I think a lot of people commenting on this discussion need to be reminded that patents and copyrights are NOT fundamental rights of creators and inventors (at least, according to US law; sorry, I do have a USian bias since I don't know the laws of any other country that well). They are granted these priveleges for the sake of promoting (sorry) innovation and progress in the sciences. It's a compromise -- the people giving up some of their freedom to promote progress.
However, many people feel (myself included) that these "Intellectual Property" laws are no longer promoting anything but the continued rule of large corporations like Time-Warner, and stupidity on the part of smaller ones like Amazon. It may no longer be in the peoples' best interests to allow these patent and copyright monopolies.
When viewed from this point of view, I think ESR's argument takes on a whole new flavour. When you don't consider having a copyright on your code a fundamental right (that copyright being the basis for software licenses of all kinds, from the GPL to a MS EULA), licensing isn't even a question. It simply becomes "here's some code".
I don't know if this is a fundamentally better situation than what we have now. I do suppot the FSF rather than Open Source because I believe that promoting the idea of Freedom is more important than just getting useful software. But I think these are questions that must be considered, and I wanted to present another angle on this argument.
Why does this just degenerate into the same tired argument of "giving you freedom A takes away my freedom B"? Of course that will always be true, for any argument about freedom. My freedom to walk on the street without getting hit conflicts with your freedom to hit people on the street.
Of course, being able to choose any license is a freedom. But that's not the freedom the FSF stands for, don't we know that already? The stand for other freedoms, namely the freedoms described in the GPL.
What exactly do all these people (and sometimes the FSF does it too, I know) hope to gain by fighting over who's freedom is best?
Society, free markets, etc., those mechanisms will pick what's best for society.
Unfortunately, the way copyright law works for software, the power is automatically in the copyright holder's hands. You have to agree to an arbitrary contract-like agreement to have a copy at all! Sometimes you actively read and agree to the contract, sometimes it's imposed on you without your knowing by some other action (buying a new computer). Imagine if everything you bought had a contract you had to read and agree to. Free markets would be impaired (think "transaction costs" from economics).
So when TOR (Tim O'Reilly) says we should be able to choose any license for software, I think he is implicitly supporting the tilted playing field of the status quo, so it's no surprise that the FSF would not agree with that standpoint.
And to suggest that the FSF would want to pass a law to make proprietary licenses illegal is silly! Pass one law, to counteract the effects of another? ESR is starting from the viewpoint that software should have a license in the first place. He should know by now, the FSF doesn't agree with that. Why not just remove the law that lets copyright holders enforce their contracts. Then the GPL would be pretty much unecessary!
RMS has never suggested many of the things people always ascribe to him. ESR is simply inventing things that he thinks RMS might want or say. It would be like RMS arguing that ESR wants to pass a law that makes it illegal not to carry a gun. Since ESR supports our freedom to carry guns, it's only logical that he would be against a freedom NOT to carry a gun, yes?
I have the condition of flerbage when I can behave in the confidence that nobody will take my life, my physical property, or my time without my consent.
Contrary to ESR's assertion, government laws disallowing proprietary licences simply would not violate flerbage.
Let's back up: Copyright is an entirely statutory grant. It simply is not a fundamental right that you can legally exclude others from reproducing your speech. For example, Congress could abolish all copyright protection if it chose. Congress has been delegated, and justly so, the power "to promote the arts and sciences" by creating statutes (not rights) that secure authors their writings for "limited Times". Copyright is a loan from the public domain. Loans are a granted priviledge and Congress may secure the loan with restrictions aimed at promoting the ends desired by giving the loan.
It would also a coherent policy view to say that the best way to promote computer science is by demanding as part of the quid-pro-quo involved in securing copyright that source code be released and be modifiable. Can anyone argue that a reasonable man might believe this would advance the progress of computer science? If majoritarian forces in Congress were able to implement this policy into law, then I believe the answer to the question of what should happen to you if you were to release under a proprietary licence anyway is not as ESR asserts that you should be arrested, but rather that the principle of "misuse of copyright" should be applied, whereby you would not receive the governement's assistence in enforcing your copyright.
Trying to licence software under a proprietary licence in the hypothesized scenario simply would not lead to your arrest. It would lead to others violating your licence and the government refusing to help you enforce it.
"The protections afforded by copyright law are completely statutory" was the holding of the Sony Betamax decision, and traces back to the earliest Supreme Court cases. Thus, you have no rights to exclude others from your work unless those statutes recognize them as such. The public owns the public domain and tasked Congress with optimizing its expansion by choosing the most appropriate statutory scheme. If Congress decides that everything you write instantly enters the public domain, then too bad -- you have no injury under the US Constitution. Similarly, they can condition your grant of protection by requiring you to meet criteria the people deem helpful to the end of promoting science and arts.
Copyright is nothing but a government granted monopoly. Wake up! If the government does not coerce people *not* to copy your stuff, then copyright doesn't exist.
Libertarianism requires government non-interference into the marketplace. Copyright is a direct intervention into the marketplace. Despite the fact that its intentions are good, it does not work, and it causes a whole heap of coercion along the way.
Property rights make some sense when they are attached to items that are scarce. Information, however, is not naturally scarce (although the ability to create it may be). Would libertarian ethics allow other sorts of interventions into the marketplace to guarantee innovation? For instance, what if it was found that better music would be created if only people with masters degrees in composition (or licensed students) were allowed to create music. Think of how much crappy music wouldn't get made if you needed 6 years of school and a license before you could strum an A chord! Is this a legitimate type of coercion? Think!
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
While I respect ESR, in this case he could not more perfectly fail to grasp the point.
Proprietary licenses, whereby a state-designated owner can use state power to declare some string of bits "property" and do nasty things to you if you copy them, are an infringement of "flerbage". (Or "freedom", if you prefer.)
Maximum "flerbage" would be the absense of copyright - not passing new restrictions on proprietary licences, but rather removing the exisitng restrictions that make proprietary licences possible.
(I'm not - for the present - arguing for or against such a change. Just arguing that outlawing certain uses of photocopiers, tape recorders, computers, etcetera, is not moving in the direction of maximum "flerbage".)
I'm disappointed that a self-described anarchist doesn't understand the difference.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That takes care of the silly things that UCITA allows, like not reviewing the product, or only suing in Ireland.
But there's still the issue of the developer who just doesn't distribute code, period. You can get rid of the entire history of copyright law if you want, but a guy who refuses to release the code has to be physically forced if you want to get it.
This guy wouldn't be offerring his program in a form sanctioned by RMS, and RMS may very well want this guy hauled into jail. Maybe to cool his heels in a cell until he comes up with the passphrase for the encrypted source on his hard drive.
This is a substantial reduction in flerbage. And I respect ESR for framing the issue in these terms.
Actually, that's not true. There are many licenses that you can not choose no matter what your twisted needs are. Perhaps you are Vincent VanGogh and you feel a deep need for each user of your software to mail you one of their ears before using your software. I am no lawyer, but I would dare say that this license would be invalid.
So the real question is, what makes a license a valid restriction on someone else's behavior? Answer: the law. What part of the law are we talking about? Copyright. How should copyright work? Well, you've begged the crap out of this question. Whether it's your property depends on whether the government grants you a monopoly on the information you've assembled into a finished work. I think the FSF folks are saying that locking up information and giving somoene a monopoly on it should be invalid because it creates an impermissible monopoly on information which is not scarce.
To put it another way, it's not your property just because it came from your mind. If you thought up RSA encryption independently, too bad, it's already been patented (and expired, hooray!). So what's really at stake is not "whose idea was it" but "who got there first". With scarce goods this is an ok compromise, maybe. With non-scarce goods, we don't have to divy up the spoils, we can make an infinite number of copies.
You just want to get paid because you work, not because you are creating something that has value outside of a government granted monopoly. Who's the communist now? Stalin indeed.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
This is more standard libertarian rhetoric. Consider: If I "choose" to work a low-income job, and therefore "choose" to live in a high-crime area, men with guns will occasionally forcibly divest me of my property. Or, as happened to a friend of mine, they won't have guns - they'll just have lead pipes, and instead of just taking my property, they'll beat the shit out of me, putting me in the hospital for weeks and *then* take my wallet.
That's what I call freedom.
Sure, I could choose to live on Monaco, were there's virtually no crime as much as I could choose to build a rocket ship and live on Mars - that is, sure in an ideal fantasy world, but not in reality.
Raymond is comparing his ideal world, in which I would have the flerbage not to use Microsoft products, to the real world in which I have the choice of significantly fewer jobs if I make that choice. If I were a secretary, I might have the "choice" of using Microsoft products or finding a new profession, probably at lower wages.
Anyway, even if he weren't an adherent to a utopian philosophy, it's not the case that being disallowed from releasing proprietary software reduces my flerbage.
Here's what Raymond says:
"If I walk up to someone and offer them the same
proprietary license that I did before the law was passed, police may come to my house to drag me off to jail, or kill me if I resist arrest. My flerbage has seriously decreased."
And here's the definition of flerbage:
"I have the condition of flerbage when I can behave in the confidence that nobody will take my life, my physical property, or my time without my consent."
Well, obviously that doesn't include acts which are illegal - you can't expect to kill someone and get away with it. So, if you say "My flerbage is decreased because I can't break the law", well, tough. Or you might say "the law is bad because it decreases my flerbage," well, that's what all laws do - but we pass them to increase the sum flerbage of each person more than it decreases your flerbage. So, you're back in the same situation where flerbage means freedom. Oops.
Here's an interesting commentary on libertarianism:
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
In this case, arguments for "proprietary" software licenses are arguments for the use of government force on the behalf of copyright holders. I mean, all this talk about "intellectual property" is eventually backed up by state power (with guns as the final resort), right?
That's not to say that I think enforcement of copyright and contract law is necessarily or entirely a bad thing. In fact, we get a lot of good out of copyright. But I think we need to look at actual causes, effects, benefits, and costs when discussing these issues rather than taunting each other with "look, I have more liberty than you!"
I wrote this on the linuxtoday talkbacks:
Ok. I think that ESR is a very good writer, and I enjoy what he wrote... BUT I want to argue the other side of the coin just to see where it leads. Forgive me, if my arguments are not entirely clear. I'm not sure I agree with them yet. Just trying them on to see if they make sense.
Ok. So ESR says that what we ought to be talking about here is flerbage. Tim's premise is that a developer ought to be albe to license his/her code under any license they choose. And that if you take away that basic right, then the flerbage of developers decreases. I think that's the only possible conclusion.
But by enabling that sort of thing, you also enable a monopolistic developer to basically control your life. Which means that the flerbage of users decreases. Let's suppose that I release a piece of code and I say, "If you want to use it, you have to let me have sex with your wife." It's a relatively simple thing for you to say, "No thanks, I don't need your code." But say Microsoft does something like this? In some cases, there is simply no way that some organizations or individuals can say no. (If there were a case where every organization could simply say "no" to Microsoft, then Microsoft would *not* be a monopoly.) Well the answer is, of course, that there is legal precedent (sp?) that prevents unreasonable contract terms. A contract that requires you to become a slave in order to fulfill your part of the contract is null and void on its face.
Soooo.. Tim's freedom zero already does not exist. Developers can *not* currently release their software under any license they choose. The license has to pass some level of "reasonability". The only question now becomes what is reasonable? What limits should licensors be under when licensing their code? And where should those limits stop?
I think that RSR & FSF are trying to set a different standard for where those limits should stop. They think that it should be unreasonable to license software that doesn't include the licensee's right to modify or fix the software, and then to release those changes and fixes. Do I agree with the FSF's position? I dunno.
The point? There already are limits on how developers can license their software, and those limits are good. Reasonable people may disagree on how far those limits should go. But to say that there should be no limits, is short sighted (IMHO). And I think that Tim's "freedom zero" basically says that there should be no limits. That may not be what he intends to say. I certainly hope not. But it's not impossible to see how RSR & the FSF might interpret Tim's statement as unlimited power for software developers... especially those with a monopoly.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I have the condition of flerbage when I can behave in the confidence that nobody will take my life, my physical property, or my time without my consent.
Larry Lessig once admonished ESR for what Lessig described as ESR's advocacy of "warmed over Ayn Rand". I would describe flerbage as "a moldy and rotting 'Ayn Rand'-like substance".
The problem with flerbage, is the "without my consent" part. Essentially it claims an individual right to veto laws that protect more than life and personal property. Ironically, given ESR's position, Copyright violations don't qualify as life, property, time deprivations so I don't know why or if ESR would support the government depriving software pirates of flerbage when they have not deprived him of it.
Like most radical libertarianism, flerbage simply misunderstands the role of public policy in recognizing property and trade. Neither property nor contracts exist outside of a context of government because both involve a concept of government force being used to redress transgressions. You do not have property or a contract unless the public, through it's agent the governement agrees to enforce it. This involves the public use of force that requires resources and the public has the right and the power to expend its resources in a way that is consistent with the heirarchy of legal principles established by a Constitution and due process of law thereunder, which includes some majoritarian lawmaking processes that predictably may occassionally result in rules that fail your personal "without my consent" test.
Enough people consent to the process to call it consensus, and you are never offered freedom from attack by the delegated power of the people if you don't consent to a particular rule and ignore it. Nobody really cares if you "never signed no steenkin social contract". If you don't consent to the process then you've declared anarchy and rebellion, so don't come whining when bad things happen to you such as your flerbage being violated. The Declaration of Independence states the principle that if the government becomes destructive to the will of the people that the people may overthrow it. Civil disobediance, peaceful or violent, is sometimes the morally correct thing to do, but nobody ever said it doesn't come with great peril precisely because it is outside of the rule of law.
First, let's look at the definition of flerbage:
"I have the condition of flerbage when I can behave in the confidence that nobody will take my life, my physical property, or my time without my consent... I am pro-flerbage."
Copyright law is inherently anti-flerbage. If I buy a copy of Dinwoes, licensed under some proprietary license, I cannot copy it without the threat of the police coming to my house and dragging me off to jail. This is a result of copyright law, NOT contract law (IANAL). Even if you accept shrinkwrap licenses, I have not agreed to the license upon buying it; I agree upon installation. If I used Nulix to copy the Dinwoes CD, I haven't agreed to the contract provision of not copying it.
In a completely pro-flerbage world, this restriction on copying would be enforced in contract law: Sircomoft (or ESR) would say "I'll trade you this software for some money, and if you copy it, you're liable to me under contract law, and I can sue you for damages."
Unfortunately, most people don't have enough money to actually pay the damages that would be incurred if a copy of Dinwoes leaked into the marketplace without the contract-law protection against copying and redistribution. As a result, we have copyright law to allow people to sell copies of easily reproduced things, because protection against copying is enforced in criminal law, not in contract law. The theory is that this increases value: the US constitution gives the legislature authority to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (Article I Section 8).
While I agree with ESR's conclusion, being pro-flerbage effectively means favoring abolishment of copyright law and replacing it soley with contract law, in which case only people who are extremely rich will be able to post enough bond to buy popular digital content. The street-artist's model would then prevail.
Did Eric say anything about copyright? Doesn't copyright in fact infringe on his flerbage? So you'd expect him to be against copyright, right? And you'd expect RMS to be in favor of copyrights, because the GPL doesn't work in the absense of them. Don't think that copyright is the only thing standing in the way of 100% freely copyable software. If you have to sign a contract that says "I will not copy this software", then it's not freely copyable, but neither has anyone invoked copyright law.
-russ
p.s. If ESR is a right-winger, why is he against the war on drugs? Why does he opposed to the US having a standing army?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
He didn't assume it. That is in fact the very thing he doesn't assume. That's why he asks RMS at the end of that's what RMS indeed wants.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The OS camp likes to paint RMS as some sort of fascist/communist demon, but when you listen more closely there's an awful lot of shrill stuff in there. A few of the more extreme OSers seem to feel that we shouldn't even be allowed to GPL our own software.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
"Information wants to free" is a statement about censorship and secrets, not an invitation to end copyright.
If Alice tells Bertram a secret, Bertram may feel compelled to reveal that secret to Charlie.
Let us say that the secret is a stock tip. Alice and Bertram stand to make a lot of money, if they keep the "secret" to themselves. On the other hand, if the secret contains a bit of "juicy gossip", Bertram might be compelled to reveal it to Charlie, and so on.
Thus, the information content of the secret determines how fast (or how slowly) it propagates across society. In that sense, the secret can be said to have deisres and needs,ala "The Selfish Gene" (RDawkins), even though the secret does not have a "intelligence" of its own...
Unless legal/economic consequences to information transfer are embedded within that secret, the secret will propagate across society. To a certain extent, copyright embodies some of those consequences.
From this page:
http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licence.html
However, some other Open Source compatible licenses are considered too restrictive for XFree86 use. They include the GNU Public License and the Perl Artistic License.
Part of the motivation for our licensing choice was to carry on the original MIT X11 tradition of allowing the code to be used as widely as possible, including in both free and commercial products.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
Unlike you, some people have to be worried about being beaten, shot, or imprisoned. The last century, over a hundred million people were killed by their government. Given that perspective, it's reasonable to worry about being beaten, shot, or imprisoned.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I believe it is more important for everyone to have freedom, even if it does reduce individual freedom.
Spoken like a true fascist. No, really, that's what they used to say. Go read about it if you don't believe me.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
To me, the article seems to confuse the main issue. An example of the main issue, for me, is that if you use, or program for, Microsoft Windows, you are effectively a dog on Bill Gates' leash. Bill can do whatever he wants with you. He can refuse to support new hardware. He can decide that your copy of Windows is obsolete. He can decide that your old hardware is obsolete. He can, under the DMCA, remotely disable your entire OS. He can support U.S. spy agencies in a hidden way. He can avoid fixing bugs because he wants to save some so that you will be interested in buying a new release.
The GPL is a sophisticated way of avoiding being under the control of a dictator. That's where the word "freedom" applies.
Bush's education improvements were
I used to think ESR was an idiot. I think I have to revise that opinion: now I think he is a *dangerous* idiot. Or maybe it is worse still, and he actually -knows- how stupid his argument as, and he is promoting it anyway.
In what ESR writes about "choosing" a license, he brings in a huge range of naturalizing assumptions about the legal framework of intellectual property which give meaning to choosing a license. There is nothing natural or inevitable about all these laws. They can and should be changed.... and if the unfreedom of existing bad laws is removed, what we are left with is the FSF's vision (or something close to it).
Let's try an obvious transposition. I won't play with silly anagrams for names though. Suppose that in the future, a chemical company creates a substance that reduces the harmful effects of pollutants in the air. They release this chemical into the air of big cities. In the meanwhile, the "Big Chemical Company IP Protection Act" has been passed to "clarify" the IP rights of patent holders. As a matter of ESR's style of freedom (or cabbage, or whatever he wants to call it), the chemical company should be allowed to "license" the breathing of their chemical (which is in all the air) on whatever terms they -freely- choose. Obviously, violators of their intellectual property rights will be dealt with by the police and the courts and the prisons.
RMS--and the Free Breathing Foundation (OK, I can't resist one fictional name)--according to ESR are confused and misleading in advocating the "freedom" to breath the air. Actually, the FBF now threatens the poor chemical company with all sort of restrictions on the terms on which they can license breathing (says ESR). Surely -freedom- would let them license on whatever terms they want.
Back to the real world, away from ESR's. Being able to breath without facing criminal sanction is a basic matter of genuine freedom. Just because there are unjust laws, it doesn't mean acting within the law is real freedom--Kant's "arbeit macht frei" to the side. Actual freedom is not facing restriction and violence for doing what one should be able to do. Likewise--and in this very world--a law restricting my reuse of software code is an unjust law. Obedience to this law is not freedom, but exactly its contrary. In the FSF's ideal world, it is not that the GPL would be imposed, but that no license restriction would be allowed at all. That is, less restrictions rather than more, versus the current unjust and unfree system. As a strategy and a compromise, the FSF have made a "viral" license that turns copyright laws against themselves in a certain way. The GPL is better that proprietary licenses, but far worse than the world in which licenses on software would be considered as absurd as licenses on breathing.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Somehow I just can't imagine Mel Gibson in blue face paint and a kilt charging down a hill in front of hundreds of Scottish warriors yelling FLLLEEEERRRRRRBAAAGGE!!!!
"They obfuscate more than they enlighten, they cloud the issues rather than clearing the air."
I say everything twice, repeating what I say a second time.
No. Both fascism and socialism believe that the needs of the society outweigh the individual. But socialism believes in equality, while fascism does not. Now try to find a society that never takes away some individual freedom for the interest of the society as a whole. Just because he's not a libertarian doesn't make him a fascist.
Perhaps it is time to evolve beyond this very old argument. Others besides RMS and ESR need to define what opensource and free software is in addition to the current definitions. We need a bot/service provider to output stored definitions whenever multiple interpretations of a word come up. Print it as a local or global def. list. Wouldn't this be better then arguing about opensource and free software defs. over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over license arguments too and over and over and over ...
--ftide
I am surprised that ESR doesn't even understand the basis of the FSF's argument. The GPL and legal remedies are temporary solutions to a bigger problem, that the government allows people and corporations to "own" information. What the FSF is calling for, in the grand scheme of things, is a RELAXATION of regulations -- allowing users to copy and modify so-called intellectual "property" as they see fit, by removing the idea of a government-enforced ownership of information.
So, it is clear to me that the FSF is not asking for a law banning proprietary licenses; rather, they are asking that we do away with the idea of 'license' altogether.
on the planet and is a great example of why Linux is still a cute little backwater in the otherwise huge *desktop* software market. How many people outside of /. care enough about whether the software they are using is "free as in beer" or "free as in speech" or what license it is issued under that they would switch to a competing product? How many? 100 - 1,000 - 10,000? Laughable numbers compared to the installed user base of Windows. Look, most people view software as a tool. Think of it as a Craftsman wrench. They only get bent out of shape when it doesn't work and what happens then? You think your average Joe will fire up a forge in his garage to cast a newer, better wrench or repair a broken one? No, he's going to take it back to the store.
And now we come to the really interesting part of the argument: what happens when there is one store that sells that tool while their competition sells tools that, while workable, have to be assembled from their component pieces but are purported to be better as their designs are on the internet for all to see and copy? Joe average user wants to get the job done and the company that publishes their specs on the internet can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, he goes to the store that provides what he needs.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves. For all of this hoopla, the real problem of trying to build a product comparable to windows is being gradually tuned out. For the life of me, I can't seriously think that MS is "afraid" of any open source initiative with this kind of shit going on. I don't know who coined the phrase but "lead follow or get out of the way" applies wonderfully here. The open source community is like two birds fighing over a dead squirrel in the road with an 18 wheeler bearing down on them.
Facism is more interested in outlining a group of people for preferential treatment, and de-humanising the rest of humanity. The second group are then used to serve the interests of the first.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
The purpose of the word "flerbage" was to create a word with zero emotional connotations, so that the rights, privileges and permissions that pertain to software can be discusses rationally.
"Liberty" has just as much emotional connotation as "freedom". Perhaps more so.
When RMS says that Free Software gives people Freedom and Liberty, I get all choked up about it. Very emotional. My great great great grandfather died so that I could be free. My great great grandfather died so that I could have liberty. By God if they would wield muskets and flintlocks against King George, then I am justified in nuking Redmond, shooting Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison, and tar and feathering all the small shareware authors!
By using the word "flerbage", everything comes into perspective. My great great great grandfather fought and died because my great great great aunts, uncles and cousins were being hung, arrested, having their homes confiscated, their livelihoods taxed and their neighbors impressed into the British Navy. But when I decide to play the latest proprietary first-person shoot-em-up game, my Liberty and Freedom is intact. My life and well-being is secure. My property is undamaged. My freedom of action with regards to my person and my property is completely unhindered. And I am not forced to provide labor, services or skills to the games's author.
Using proprietary software is like walking into a closet and closing the door behind you. According to the dictionary definition, I would indeed be less "free". I don't have the freedom to flail my arms about. I don't have enough room to have the freedom to lie down. But I am not a slave. I am not subjugated or dominated by the closet. At any time I can simply open the door and leave. And should I decide that the use of a proprietary program becomes too onerous, I can simply and easily stop using it.
I may indeed be less "free" when I walk into a closet or use proprietary software. But my flerbage is intact.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Please realise that Eric Raymond is just plain lying. He suggests that Stallman asks for new laws that could put software developers into jail. The opposite is true: Stallman ask that copyright for programs be abolished, period. One law less, fewer people that will go to jail.
Programmers can still do whatever they will, the state just won't help them enforce their copyright.
The article contains more untruths. One is, that the existence of proprietary software does not restrict user's freedom, beacause he does not have to use it. The fact is, that people are ordered to use software by their employer and thus bound by the licenses if they like it or not.
Other example: Game developers are forced to spend their time helping MS since if they develop for Linux instead, they will not survive.
(They might choose to help Sony or Nintendo instead, but that is not much better).
.. Foundation for Software Flerbage
..right?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Wrong, you pay pennies on the dollar
"Pennies on the dollar" can mean 99 cents on the dollar.
for the production of the textbook, and the rest is royalties to the publisher and authors of the book.
You're assuming textbooks can't be released under the GNU Free Documentation License after their first printing. (Why use GNU FDL?) At least in the print industry, the publisher is less likely to take all rights from the author than it would in the record or movie industry.
If people realized that the abolition of copyright
I'm not necessarily for abolition of the copyright monopoly. I'm for restoring it to its original purpose: promoting the creation of new works. Retroactive copyright term extensions do NOT promote the creation of new works; most works make most of their money by far in the first 28 years. I'm also for full disclosure of the terms of any license (especially fair use restrictions) BEFORE the license is bought: "This DVD contains CSS encryption and may be played only on players licensed by DVD CCA. You may NOT copy the caption text. You may NOT grab frames. You may NOT back up the video or audio. You may NOT skip the Special Offers that precede the program."
removes or squeezes the profit motive out of [the entertainment industry], and that such action then reduces both the number of suppliers and the quality and quantity of what is produced, it no longer sounds like a Good Idea(TM)
Even if the monopoly were abolished, there would still be people who create for the fun of creating. The love of money should never be a fellow's primary motivation.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Isn't this also the idea of democracy? To take away "freedoms" from the government, as a means to give more freedom to the citizens?
Isn't this, in fact, the idea of any society? To take away from individual persons the freedom to do whatever they want (like owning slaves, killing people, raping women etc.), and force them to act according to laws, as a means to give more freedom to the public as a whole?
The difference between facism and democracy is not the existence of laws, it is who creates them, and it is if the individual restrictions of freedom are applied equally to all citizens.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Raymond states his ethical commitment as "increase ferblage". I wish to argue that flerbage is an ill-conceived term.
My Ferblage, he defines, consists of three req's
1. Nobody shall kill me
2. Nobody shall rob me of my physical property
3. Nobody shall take my time without my consent.
Let us investigate whether these axioms are necessary and sufficient.
Obviously 1. and 2. are necessary and everybody will agree. However, 3. is quite difficult to enforce. Demonstrations cause traffic jams, traffic jams rob my time, should demonstrations be outlawed? Should the police be disallowed to question suspects and witnesses in a murder case, because it is taking up their time? Can we require citizens to wait at traffic lights? What about the draft?
Conclusion: Not being robbed of my time is very desirable, but hardly a necessary right.
Now for completeness. It seems to me that ERS should be quite happy living, for example, in China. They have some good facilities (e.g. Apple) where he could work. Freedom of speech, usage of the internet, freedom of movement, freedom to buy what you like all don't seem to matter to him. After all, these have nothing to do with flerbage.
Surely Raymond would not consider that his ferblage is reduced when he gets jailed for amusingly mangling the chairman's name. It would be his own fault, just like it would be my own fault if I got jailed for not properly licensing my software.
Eric Raymond has inspired for me a new nickname that I will forever associate with him. And though it's not exactly a new term, it certainly seems to fit the person: CapMan. Actually, on the comic book cover where I see this flashing in colors of metallic red and copper, the full title reads "The Incredible CapMan". The question is--who, or more precisely, what, is a CapMan?
Simple, silly, CapMan is short for Capitalist Maniac. We could also precede that description with a few other modifiers, such as gun-toting, narcissistic, egomaniacal CapMan, and we would have a full description of the King of the Bazaar.
Up to this point in this post, probably as far as the moderators will read before modding this down, I've disparaged one of the gods of the Open Source Marketing Engine--literally, the High Priest himself--in a highly personal way. If you're still with me, allow me to elucidate exactly why this comic vision has risen in my eyes.
ESR is undoubtedly a talented individual, but his personal vision of unfettered, fully armed laissez-faire capitalism, is, like all proponents of the creed, self-contradictory, and, ultimately, selfish in the way that only readers of Rand can admire as a positive quality. What has always galled me about this unspoken but fully present theme in his discourse is the barely-veiled self-promotional qualities of it: what's good for Open Source is good for ESR, often VERY good for ESR; he's certainly improved his profile by his crusade. Beyond that, though, is the fundamental contradiction of anarcho-capitalist/right-libertarian "freedom" espoused by the tenets of ESR and his Open Source cronies. Though they talk about the "communist dictatorship" of RMS and FSF as if that will eventually cut into their profits (because such an anti-business model cannot be sold to the suits who throw them scraps from their tables), they have little problem using the software that allows them their little capitalist fantasies, and would, no doubt, pull a Bill Gates if the FSF released its wares under BSD-style licensing.
Simply, ESR's argument about a law for *any* licensing is a straw man. In a free world, there ARE no laws, because the individuals participating in such a mature society would not need to be told what to do like young children at the dinner table. I find it particularly interesting, though unsurprising, that ESR's "found contradiction" in the FSF model is viewed by him as a failing of logic; I'm sure that RMS can only be nodding somewhere, saying "precisely my point". The GPL is the ultimate software Leviathan: it is there until we're mature enough to not need it. (Besides, does anyone *really* believe a law against non-GPL licences would ever see the light of day? Perhaps in ESR's Form world, but like many things outside of that world, logical extremes to make a point cannot and will not ever exist: Plato sounds good in _The Republic_, too, but no one wnats that form of justice, either.)
Why is that when push comes to shove, capitalist arguments for or against laws always wind up being the equalavent of their communist counterparts? Shouldn't we look beyond the inherent statist principles of these two economic systems to a place where neither are necessary? *My* reading of the GPL is an attempt to do this--within the current paradigm of statist legalism. Perhaps if ESR looked beyond his own immediate needs, he might appreciate the long-range vision that the GPL represents.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
To illustrate the doublethink...
ESR suggests:
But one could also say:
In fact, I find the counterpoints more logically consistent than ESR's points. If copyright or contract law was changed to disallow such restrictive licences, people wouldn't be punished for offering such licences, such licences would simply be unenforceable, and as it currently stands, actions (unauthorized copying) which by his own definition do not infringe on another's flerbage, can cause the state to infringe on yours.
Goddamn. Doublethink and newspeak. ESR has crossed the line with this one.
"Flerbage" is also the dumbest attempted coinage I've heard in a long time. He'll carry the embarassment of this to his grave.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Since all ESR really cares about is that no one threatens his physical person, property, or time; then he certainly won't object to my redefining the word "flerbage".
/his property/) definition of the word, then I have certainly stepped on his toes, haven't I? Gosh, I hope he doesn't come after me with his big pistol.
Entry: flerbage
Function: noun
1: the leitmotif of a pompous windbag
"...more flerbage from ESR".
Of course, if ESR feels compelled to spend time defending "his" (as in
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
You must cause any work that you distribute OR publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
If you read that slow 3 times you might become convinced that you understand what this crucial paragraph means. Do so now, before we proceed to test your Commie IQ.
Commie IQ Test Question #1:
You're an independent, sole proprieter, consulting programmer who obtains a copy of the source of a GPL'ed time-sheet application to which you add enhancements that could benefit a bunch of other independent, sole proprieter, consulting programmers. You give copies to a bunch of your business associates who are independent, sole proprieter, consulting programmers with whom you frequently collaborate. Are you required to license the enhanced time-sheet program, as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of the General Public License?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #2:
You're an employee of a Fortune 500 investment banking concern on Wall Street who, in that role, obtains a copy of the source of a GPL'ed time-sheet application which you enhance in a way that could benefit your employer if distributed to your fellow employees acting in their roles as employees. Being a good employee, you, in your role as said employee, proceed to realize the potential benefit to your employer by distributing copies of your enhanced program to a bunch of your fellow employees. Are you and/or your employer required to license the enhanced time-sheet program, as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of the General Public License?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #3:
You're a worker hero of the KGB during the Soviet Era who obtains a copy of the source of a GPL'ed time-sheet application which you enhance in a way that could benefit the workers of the world. Being a good worker hero, you, in your role as said worker hero, proceed to realize the potential benefit to the workers of the world by distributing copies of your enhanced program to a bunch of your fellow worker heros -- all within the Kremlin and its agencies world-wide. Are you and/or your glorious revolutionary withering-away state required to license the enhanced time-sheet program, as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of the General Public License?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #4:
Were Stahlman's parents members of the Communist Party?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #5:
Did Stahlman receive funding from the Soviet Union while establishing the General Public License?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #6:
Did a Jacob Schiff -- patrilineal ancestor of Al Gore's son-in-law and founder of major investment banking houses on Wall Street near the start of the 1900's -- finance Leon Trotsky's Bolshevick Revolution thereby starting the purges that Stalin ramped up to the extermination of tens of millions of people in eastern Europe just prior to WW II?
YES or NO
Commie IQ Test Question #7:
Does "distribute" mean the same thing as "publish" in paragraph 2.b. of the General Public License?
YES or NO
Answers:
- YES
- NO according to the FSF's lawyers & GPL FAQ
- NO
- YES according to folk-lore from Santa Rosa Hackers Conference
- YES according to folk-lore from Santa Rosa Hackers Conference
- YES
As for question 7, you'll have to take this up with the lawyers for the Free Software Foundation, because I've never seen a straight answer on what we are to make of the distinction between the terms "distribute OR publish" in paragraph 2.b. of the General Public License.One thing is clear, however:
The Free Software Foundation follows in a long tradition of hostility toward the original American value placed on independent innovation -- instead favoring large organizations, whether they be Fortune 500 Wall Street investment bankers or governments.
In other words, "Commie Hipocrisy" is redundant.
Seastead this.
Yes, I did include the ending hyperlink marker on the initial link to paragraph 2.b in the parent message to this one, and I did preview to ensure it came up as expected. It was only after posting the message that the run-away hyperlink appeared. The originally submitted HTML is available in the body of the html at this link.
Seastead this.
Then GNU/Linux came about, and millions learned about the free (as in beer) opereting system that was competing with Microsoft.
We should drop the F word, and call it Freedom Software. It may not sound as pure and snappy as free software, but it'll save us from having to explain this everytime somebody from the outside runs into Free Software. Freedom is a word that is harder to confuse with gratis.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
He asks
But this could be worded rather differently. After all, proprietary licenses only exist because
of legal controls on freedom expression. So I ask ESR
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
ESR's political views sometimes make it hard for him to understand certain situations, in this case the roles of state and law in deals.
His retorical question is: Would RMS support a law that made proprietary software licenses illegal?
The first problem with the question is that it is pretty far out, the first goal would be to soften copyright law. Copyright law restricts freedom by removing certain freedoms (to copy) without consent of the affected people. I never agreed that I can't use Mickey Mouse in my own work, nonetheless, so it isn't even a deal. No freedom (under any name) would be taken away by removing copyright law. It does have a set of different consequences I would dislike, though.
However, that is not his purpose either. His purpose is to paint RMS and his supporters as lunatics who will use guns to prevent people from making deal/agreements to their mutual benefits.
To do this, we enter the area of deals and contract law. A contract can be seen as a situation where two parties volunteerely give up a limited amount of their freedom, to the benefit of both parties. In an emplyement contract the employee give up some of his freedom to spend his time as he will, and the employer give up some of his freedom to spend his money as he want.
From a metalegal perspective, there are basically three types of agreements.
1. Legal agreements. These are agreements that are guarenteed by the state, through contract law. If the contract is violated, the state will intervene. Without a strong state to guarentee it, you would only be able to make agreements with people you for some reason would know would fullfil it. It would be impossible to make contracts with strangers, and progresss would slow much down.
Libertarians doesn't like the idea of the state as a necessary catalysator for progress, since the state is Evil in Libertarian dogma. So instead they tend to think of this type of contracts as some kind of natural force.
2. Contracts which the state will not guarentee. When a certain kind of contract is outlawed, it typically just really mean that the state will not put its weight behind them. This is ideally contracts which is known to cause trouble, for example a contract to sell your labour for the rest of your life, or a contract in which you promise not to take backup of a computer program.
You are still allowed to sign as many of these contracts you want, you just can't rely on the state to enforce them.
Libertarians tend to ignore this kind of deals, as it makes them uncomfortingly aware of the role played by the state in the first kind of deals.
3. Deals that are really illegal, ideally because they (substancially) damage a third party. Anti-trust law is the prime example of that. If you have a single competitor in a specific market, you are not allowed to make an agreement with him about dividing the market between you. Such a deal would benefit both of you, by bypassing the market forces and allowing higher prices.
Libertarians _hate_ this kind of laws. They see it as the evil state comming with guns[1] and denying the small man (often in the form of a large company) his freedom to make deals with whomever he pleases.
The second dogma of the libertarians is "the market is good". The apperent contradiction with the laws made to protect the market is solved by saying "only the state can stop a free market".
When ESR starts speculating about how free software fanatics would stop proprietary software licenses, he of course ignore the possibility of making it a "kind #2" deal (i.e. deals not backed by the law). Even though these are common, and fits the problem very well, he goes directly to the possibility "kind #3" deals, which are much easier for a Libertarian to relate to. Kind #3 deals are "men with guns", kind #2 deals are the state confusingly staying out of matters between privates.
[1] Even if the state rarely _literally_ bring guns in this kind of cases, they _could_ bring guns if, say, one company kept all their money in cash, and used their constitutional right to defend it with guns. _Then_ the state would bring guns, so the threat is there in the Libertarian mind. And the rhetorics is great.
Typical libertarian argument. Everybody is a free agent and the mysterious phantom hand of free will will eventually knock down, or relegate to irrelevance evil entities. WRONG. If we learn *anything* from history, free choice alone does not preserve a free society. Tell me this: when there is only a monopoly producing a given product or service what "choice" do you have? What if there aren't monopolies, but just many many companies who are all *equally* as bad? What if there simply isn't any choice at all? You can't merely wipe your conscience clean by naively saying "oh, we have CHOICE! I'll close my eyes now and just *assume* based on that premise that everything will work out OK". Well things don't work out OK. Bad people join together to screw the rest while the good blindly go about with their hands to their ears singing "lalalalala" comfortable thinking that the choices they make put them in control (we have always been at war with east asia). We need both free choice, AND fervent independent watchdogging. Given the state of the market, I think the FSF's "overzealousness" is not entirely uncalled for in this watchdogging role. We certainly don't need ESR bitchin about FSF.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The problem is not that copyright allows someone to sell information, software, etc. If that was all it was good for, I don't think, many people cared about it, but the current situation is that this is THE MOST USELESS part of what copyright and restrictive licenses accomplish.
Look at any software company. It always has a bunch of proprietary information that it does not want to disclose to anyone, including its customers -- I know because I work for one. What is that information, why is it valuable? Because it can be sold? No, directly most of it has use less valuable than a paper it's printed on, and companies almost never attempt to sell it unless when company is being bought outright. However it's tightly guarded, and is considered to be what makes a company profitable.
That information is usually related to the aility to interoperate with company's products and to make alternative versions of them. Usually it's some, often braindead, protocol, APIs, data structures, etc. -- things invented arbitrarily, and usually without the application of any mental effort whatsoever. However keeping customers and competitors unaware of those allows companies to keep selling their new products to old customers and prevent others from replacing company's products with something else, even if competitors would be perfectly capable of producing superior replacements if not customers being locked in by proprietary protocols, interfaces and formats.
So, this kind of proprietary information does not behave as knowledge, or even as a good that can be sold -- it's an instrument of power, the power that IMNSHO no one deserves to exercise, and copyright is merely a tool to protect this abuse of the customer. Compared to this power, actual ability/unability to make the customer pay for software, or only for service, is so insignificant in the modern software industry, no one in his right mind would think about it. This is what I find unethical about proprietaty software licenses, and copyright law that protects them.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Subject: Re: FRED: Corrections about WPA?
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:15:18 -0400
From: Fred Langa
A small number of writers have argued that I'm misrepresenting WPA, because it's not really "registration." They point out that the mandatory "product activation" is step one, but that it involves no personal information. Step two is an optional formal "registration;" you may skip this step if you wish.
But I think this argument lets Microsoft get away with some Clintonesque semantic games. To me, if you have to contact the vendor to unlock your software, that's "registration" even if Microsoft calls it something else.
As for the personal nature of it, I stated in the original article ( http://www.informationweek.com/851/langa.htm ) that Microsoft has a good track record for not collecting inappropriate data via reg/update wizards and such. But in this case, by generating a hash based on your CPU's unique serial number, your network card's unique MAC address, etc., it gets *awfully* specific.
Calling that level of detail "impersonal" is like saying, "I've developed a unique identifier code for you that's based on where you live, your shoe size, hat size, the type of car your drive, and the brand and size of your spouse's underwear; but because I never actually asked you for your NAME, it involves no personal information about you." Riiiiiiight.
Yes, Microsoft says the 50-digit hash cannot be deconstructed to reveal your system information, but I have to wonder. At the very least, the potential for abuse is enormous, both on the data-collection side, and on the de-hashing side. (Want to bet that some cracker, somewhere, figures out a de-hash algorithm?)
In short Microsoft can call it what they will. I call it "registration."
_____________
This is my message to Fred:
At 06:53 AM 8/20/01 -0700, Michael Jennings wrote:
Fred,
Response to your statements about WPA is below.
Who is right?
(I posted your comments to a Slashdot thread, with your web site address.)
Regards,
Michael Jennings
Bush's education improvements were
You are right. Windows 98 will not stop functioning. But the lack of support will begin to make it difficult. New drivers won't work with old operating systems, for example.
You can program for Windows 95 now, too. But there have been so many changes that it not something that makes sense in most cases.
When Microsoft made Windows 98, they apparently deliberately broke some of the DOS functionality. I know DOS is a joke, but it is the only common scripting language for this OS. I use it for important work. When Microsoft decided to remove features, it caused a lot of problem for me: I lost hours.
My idea is that this just would not happen under the GPL. At the very least, if I saw that functionality had been removed, I could post a bug report. If there were no good reason for the change, probably someone would fix it.
In actual practice, my experience has been that I have a response within hours, and a fix within a day. The people who write free software are often wonderful people, in my experience.
Bush's education improvements were
Raymond exposes his typical narrow capitalist-libertarian concept of freedom with his flerbage definition.
Should people be allowed to sell their organs?Should they be allowed to sell themselves into slavery? Should people be allowed to discuss and plan
pricing of their products with competitors? Should people be allowed to sign away their fair-use rights? Should people be allowed to bribe officials?
All of these increase the affected people's flerbage.
ESR argues against something that was never asserted: that developers should be prohibited by law from choosing proprietary licences. If he had taken the trouble to actually understand what was written, he would see that the only point was correctness of terminology. When you choose a license, you are exercising power over licensees. You tell them what they can/can't do. That's what a license is for: to impose rules on others.
Stallman and Kuhn readily admit in their article that everyone who releases software is forced (by copyright law) to exercise this power. What they object to is taking this power and including it in a list of freedoms which formerly had nothing to do with exercising power over others.
Maybe the word "freedom" just has ESR overly confused. We certainly don't need Tim O'Reilly to cloud the word's meaning even further.
Right, I just don't understand the motivation behind arbitrary selfishness. Rather, there is no motivation by definition because it is arbitrary.
I guess if you could justify your selfishness, I would understand. If you can't, well... I'm just of the opinion that the default policy should be unselfishness unless there is logical justification for selfishness.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.