Slashdot Mirror
Freedom or Power Redux
Ed. note - a brief response to Tim. A) my name isn't Timothy. (I know, I know, we all look alike. :) And B) I was trying to say pretty much what O'Reilly is saying - that all licensing, including the GPL, is an expression of power over what other people can do with the software. Hence the term "all licensing". If there were no copyright whatsoever on computer code, no intellectual property considerations at all, perhaps we could approach the state of true freedom. In the meantime, the GPL is a good way to place code firmly into a state where it is mostly free - you are free to do anything with GPL code except take it out of its free state. As far as restrictions go, this one is infinitely more palatable than most of the powers that software licensing seeks to exercise over software users.
As a more general point, I take issue with O'Reilly's description of copyright law as a compromise between creators and users. There's absolutely no evidence that the rights of users are considered when copyright laws are made. All copyright law changes made in my lifetime, nearly all copyright law changes ever, have been expansions of copyright law - if it's a compromise, it's an extraordinarily one-sided one. (I suppose you could a describe a mugging as a compromise between the mugger and the little old lady over rights to her purse.) Copyright law is more accurately described as a compromise between copyright holders and copyright holders. Other descriptions are both inaccurate and do a disservice to efforts to reform the laws.
In the Free Software world, we are all forced to make hard decisions. One of the most difficult is deciding which license to use. And I applaud these two men to even consider broaching the topic in such a public way.
Unfortunately, the two viewpoints are irreconcilable. One values the rights of the individual over the needs of the Free Software world, and one values the needs of the Free Software world over the rights of the individual. RMS promises that everyone will have the right to see the code they're running, and that right will be enforced by a society who accepts the GPL. O'Reilley promises that everyone will have the right of self-determination as an author, as long as the GPL is not mainstream. The problem here is that the realization of both visions is mutually exclusive.
So, to these men, I say: drop it. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the people decide which license should govern them. It's nothing short of a vi vs. emacs or Christianity vs. Islam battle, and neither side stands a chance at winning. Let the users decide.
~wally
I have a few friends who are anarchists Going to meetings and exposing the gaping holes in their theories in the past was very amusing. Nice People Though. Instead of anarchists, I think they're really idealists. Problem is, The Ideal is the impossible.
Remember that you are unique, just like everybody else.
Where can I get the source to MS Visual C++ and VB? I want to "share" it.
It seems to me that the only way to get freedom in this day and age is to use open source software. It enables something that M$ can't do.
The article also mentioned a lot of insightful ideas, such as the predication of the death of M$ in the year 2030.
Interesting indeed.
Please, post comments. Don't use your position as the guy writing the story to give your comments an automatic permanent "+5, sysop".
Copyright is a brilliant compromise. It encourages people to make things available that they wouldn't otherwise, knowing that they still have some control over these things. Now, I grant freely that the huge extension of copyright duration works solidly against users - but other aspects of the law have done a very good job of balancing these things, such as the fair use rules.
In the absence of copyright, how exactly do you think games would get written? How would John Carmack earn a living?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
On the point that "all copyright changes" don't take into account the user this isn't the case in the EU where some changes have been done for that reason.
One issue that isn't often addressed is the cultural differences between countries that lead to different approaches being appropriate in different countries. The same is true within different parts of an organisation ("If I can't pay it ain't worth it" to "If its free then it fits in my budget"). Licensing is about the _writer_ of the software or work which may make sense in their environment but not in that of another. Thus a proprietary license and ownership but free distribution (eg Java) may make a lot of sense if it ties in with the aims of the program.
IMO Writers of a work have a right on how it should be used, it is not for _users_ to say how it should be used as it is not their effort that created it. That said the Writer's right does not extend once the users effort has been expended, whether that be by paying cash or by building upon the artefact.
If I buy a brick, I do not expect to pay a regular license for the house.
Cultural differences are just as important. If a certain practice seems strange or odd to you probably means that your approach seems odd to them. Basically tolerance is the important deal, being dictatorial makes you as much as a fool as the guy you are arguing against.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
Well written, I would suggest that you submit that to the www.adequacy.org forum. It's a bit technical for them, but about the same quality.
You also aren't allowed to distribute GPL'd code without an attached political screed you may not agree with, nor are you allowed to release free software which links with GPL'd code, but doesn't contain any. Consider RIPEM; a program was released, which was self-contained, and had a sed script to change it to link with the GNU fast MP math library. They got harassed because it was *POSSIBLE* to make their code *WORK WITH* GPL'd code, but it wasn't free enough.
:)
That's a far cry from "the only thing you can't do is take away the freedom". It is a lie, and a willful one, to claim that you can take away the freedom of *ANY* free code. If I put code in the public domain, no one can ever make it unfree. They can make their own versions with whatever restrictions they want, but *MY* code remains free, forever. No other license can say as much.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Anyone actually able to read it? From the link in the story and from oreillynet page, I get a timeout/502 proxy error...
I think there are distinctly two lines here:
1. Stallman Ideas are communist - no relation to way USSR implemented its ideas of communism. Rather an original idea of communism.
2. Other opensource licences are 'socialism' with fragments of communism, here and there. See Finland, other european contries.
Taken that, I think it is a disservice Tim doing for the public, trying to confuse them and make public analyse each of the licences. Why? Because most public is not able, interested or have time to pick apart lawyer made contraptions. Now if he was to say that BSD licence is good, here's why, that would let common programmers understand advantages of either and pick one.
Business being a thing that will consume anything to grow, opensource licences are usable and possibly exploitable under some circuimstances, while GPL is least exploitable - AFAIK.
Can someone with a cached copy of the weblog please post it here? /. effect in action.
Ta,
Those who want to make their code free should be able to make their code free and prevent anything non-free from interacting with it. Those who want to write proprietary software should be equally able to do so under whatever terms and conditions they wish. It's ultimately up to users to decide what kind of software they want to use. The "best" license is not the license that RMS or O'Reilly say is best, but the one that gets the most support from people at large.
Since this is being brought up again, I'll just repost what I posted last time because it was good then and it's good now:
Arguments based on fundamentally weak propositions never succeed in communicating very clearly and that appears to be the case here. It's the rhetorical parallel of "garbage in, garbage out."
People do this all the time, but that doesn't make it a sound logical practice.
I think the initial quote on the piece by Hazlitt is very suggestive of the overall tone . . .
"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves."
I take issue with this quote. The suggestion being that there has to be either the love of oneself of the love of others. There is no real argument being made here, simply an opinion being stated. As a person very full of love for myself and for others, I think it's a ridiculous statement. I say you have to love yourself to love others
Ah, copyright.
The much aligned burden of so many. It is much like the lock on the shed, there, in the back. Really, no one will steal from you, but it is there to deter those who may fall, and abuse such a treat as an open shed. Better to be safer, no?
Then again, it's your fucking shed.
this is one issue that I have never understood about open source advocacy: the talk about "users".
(pure) users can't program thus their "freedom" is a 1:1 coupling to the freedom of the programmer that is their "supplier".
The only freedoms that thus matter are those of programmers (and "users that can program", if you must). But an easier metric to compare licenses would be "Nth level recipient", i.e.:
zero level: the original programmer and licensor
1st level: the programmer that builds on the original code
2nd level and onward: programmer that wants to build on the N-1 level base.
The GPL gives "most freedom" to levels 0 and 2 onwards (the more "selfish" license), whereas the BSD license gives "most freedom" to level 1 (a license giving "most freedom" to all of them can't exist, it will always be a fundamental choice). As soon as a level is occupied by a "user", there won't be any N+1 levels after it, so "freedom" becomes irrelevant.
RMS is not interested in compromise. His continued radical views throw the majority of the moderate open source developers into irrelevance. The open source community would be better off without him.
I can't help but to point out the thick irony of RMS, on the one hand, arguing that open source software is all about freedom over power, and on the other hand, running for the GNOME board of directors to restrict the freedom of users to use GNOME with closed-source software, thereby maintaining power over what he sees as "his" project.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
In Stallman's universe, software companies just wouldn't exist. It would be impossible for a bunch of programmers to get together and support themselves by developing great software. They'd have to find some other thing they could sell along with it. But suppose they didn't want to do that. Suppose they just wanted to write software - they're screwed. Those people are no longer free to just write software!
The freedom to decide to charge for some of your software is a freedom, because it allows you to choose your career. Without the ability for anyone anywhere to ever charge for any software, the freedom for programmers to just be programmers disappears.
I'm not saying that Free software is a bad thing. But it has to co-exist with proprietary software for software development as a whole to remain viable.
[Disclaimer, I haven't read Tim O'Reilly's web log, it is slashdotted]
...all licensing, including the GPL, is an expression of power over what other people can do with the software.
... 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;" Congress is supposed to legislate according to the will of the people, or at least the people who voted for them.
Michael writes:
I disagree. Copyright Law is an expression of power of the copyright holder over the users of the media. Many licenses (eg, the typical Microsoft EULA) make use of the power of Copyright and Contract Law to claim even more power over the users. It makes sense to say that these licenses are an expression of power.
The GPL, and other Free Software licenses take no additional power over users beyond those already exerted by copyright laws. In fact, they give users additional freedoms that they would not otherwise have. I would call these licenses expressions of freedom, not power.
I take issue with O'Reilly's description of copyright law as a compromise between creators and users. There's absolutely no evidence that the rights of users are considered when copyright laws are made.
Historically, yes, copyright law has had much more to do with balancing the rights of creators with the rights of publishers. In the US, the rights of users are brought into the equation by the doctorine of Fair Use, which is a matter of legal precident in the court system, not by creation of laws.
Fundamentally, however, any law is an agreement between "The People" (being those who permit the government to exist by following the rules and refraining from revolting), and those particular people governed by the law. Copyright law is no exception.
The basis of Copyright Law in the US is in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have the power
So basically, Copyright Law as it now stands in the US is a compromise between the users (via their representatives in Congress), and the creators (via their lobbyists in Washington). Yes, it is a one-sided compromse (observe that the lengths of copyright have always been set so that Mickey Mouse stays out of the public domain).
If you want a different balance, make sure your will is known to your representatives. If your representatives ignore your will, vote for someone else. If enough people get involved, our government still won't be perfect, but at least it will better represent the will of people, and look less like the will of lobbyists.
For those of you in other nations, the basic theory is the same, the mechanisms are different.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Either I have misunderstood what you have said (most likely) or you have little understanding of the idea behind copyright law.
Copyright law is (in most, some would argue all, cases) the only thing which
prevents you from making a copy of another person's intellectual property.
It presupposes that you accept the concept of "intellectual property" as valid.
Why would you want to accept the concept of intellectual property; the concept that someone else "owns" an idea, and has property rights to it?
You accept it because of the benefit it brings to you to do so. Or at least you do if you're smart.
The idea behind copyright law is that we agree as a society that
the benefit we derive from having Authors and Inventors share their ideas
is worth more than the cost of granting to them a limited
monopoly of control over the use of those works.
If you feel that this deal is no longer working to your benefit, you can agitate for a renegotiation. If we as a society
feel the same way, then we should re-write the terms of that deal.
We should all understand that whenever the terms of this deal
are changed, either to the benefit of the Authors and Inventors, or to the
benefit of the public, these changes will have repercussions.
I agree with you; since the establishment of copyright law in the United States, the terms of this
agreement have consistently been re-adjusted in favor of the Authors and Inventory.
(Or rather, in favor of the publishers. Was that intentional?)
Perhaps there is a need to re-evaluate the terms of this agreement once more.
Perhaps we need a Federal oversight comittee to manage the
national Intellectual Property and Copyright issues for the benefit
of the society in the same manner that the Federal Reserve
system manages the money supply for the general benefit of the society?
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
While strictly true, this is a blatantly unfair claim. If we accept that actions are expressions of either freedom or power (as per Kuhn and Stallman's definition), we must also accept that expressions of power either limit others' freedom, or limit others' power. Using power to limit freedom, we can all agree is evil. Using power to limit power, however, must be allowed in some form, unless you feel that no-one may stop thieves and murderers.
If you acknowledge that software licensing is a form of power (and it is RMS's primary contension that proprietary licensing is an exercise of power that deprives users of essential freedoms), then it follows that GPL licensing uses power to limit power. It becomes a question of whether it's acceptible for individuals to limit others' power in this way. But you can't simply vilify all forms of power.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
In light of current trends in intellectual property law, I humbly suggest that GPL is an excellent defense against an out-of-control system that is now being used contrary to the compromise from which it arose.
But the GPL is just as much an expression of power over users as any proprietary license.
Hello, RMS.
I like the project I'm working on. I want to share the source code, because I think a lot of other people might apply it in groovy ways that don't suggest themselves to me.
But YOUR viewpoint is brick for brick the same prison as the Redmond Institute for the Monopolistically Inclined.
Mr. O'Reilly, your moderate view is a breath of fresh air.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
European are fucking pussy, socialists. You can almost feel the jealousy when they try to bash the United States(the greatest country to ever exist by far), in one of their posts.
The copying issue is the problem and what I would love to see is a free license with the following restrictions:
I believe something like this would go a long way to making sure that developers get their due, and can earn a living by charging for software but other developers/users can make copies, share with friends, or learn from the code.
The Anti-Blog
Jane spends 1000 hours slaving over code for the best web browser ever. I've been sitting on the couch watching the Simpsons, so I get to tell her what to do with the code she has just produced. I can tell her how I can use it, how I can distribute it. Sound fair?
Douglas Adams spends the last 6 months of his life writing the beginnings of a novel. He dies, and his publisher decides what happens to the novel, to what extent it is butchered by some ghost writer, and where the profits go.
Lars spends 20 years creating songs. I buy one of his cd's and decide that I get to say who can listen to the music and under what conditions.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster create Superman. National, now DC, now AOL-Time-Warner-God, Inc, now decide how the character is used, how it is distributed, and who owns it. Jerry and Joe end up working in the mailroom for chump change.
None of these scenarios is morally correct to my mind. Luckily, Jerry and Joe's heirs won back some of their rights in court and now the some creators of some of the biggest icons in comics are getting some recognition, but it is still too little too late.
Creator's Rights. Repeat it to yourself. You create it, you put the sweat and thought into it, you own it, you control it. Not the corporations, not the chump downloading the file. RMS is simply wrong. The creator can give up rights, which Lars and others have done, but they have to to have the choice, not the leeches.
Ok, I'm going to be rather harsh and criticize this point for point.
There's an old children's story I heard once... Lets start out with O'Reilly's objectionable mentioning of the story regarding cows and butter. There's a reason he doesn't tell you the name of the story: that's because the story is racist, designed to make fun of African American people. The story basically details an African American boy going to get things for his mother each day and idiotically blundering in doing such simple things. The story was clearly desiged to imply that African American people are dumb.
My goal is to see as much good software created as possible, and for that to happen, we need a range of licensing models.
A simplified and stupid goal. What good is it to have "good software" if the vast majority of the public can't afford it? The goal should be to maximize the amount of good software the the public effectively has access to(that means, maximize the amount of good software that the average person will get). Progress is useless to society if it only helps the upper echelon of the rich. There are currently "treatments" for AIDS. Big freakin' deal. Only the richest 1% of people in America can afford AIDS treatment. Who cares? Zillions of tax-payer dollars were pumped into research for AIDS...the result: a "treatment" that is completely unavailable to the average person; only the richest of the rich benefit from tax-payer dollars spent on AIDS research. Don't expect that to change when a "cure" is found either.
The Slashdot moderator noted: "it's pretty clear that true freedom would not let one person control what another does with software."
This is just silly. The GPL absolutely controls what other people can do with software. Even the BSD license, which is very generous, places restrictions (e.g. attribution).
O'Reilly's assertion that "that's silly" is not backed up. Simply because GPL does express power over others, does not mean that people have the right to excercise power over others in the form of licensing. GPL is a licensing solution designed to work under the current system of IP, which does excercise some power over others, in order to prevent them from excercising power over others. I agree that GPL does excercise power over users; however, it is the only way under our current system to prevent those users from modifying the code, copyrighting it, and excercising undue power over others.
I'm a firm believer in the original goal of copyright law, which was to maximize progress in the useful arts.
Again, the same criticism applies. "Maximizing progress" is pointless. What you want to maximize is useful progress that the average public person benefits from. If progress in software means that you have to spend 1000 dollars for a single program, that progress is useless to the vast majority of us. Might as well not have it, resources are better spent on a cheaper alternative.
And I know that sometimes throwing something to the winds (i.e. releasing open source software) is the best way to maximize progress, while at others, placing restrictions on its distribution takes you further towards that goal.
Closing off ideas and placing restrictions on them is never the optimal way to increase progress; and it certainly is never the optimal way to increase useful progress(progress that the majority of the public can benefit from). Want a historical example? Lets see, lets compare the Modern age of "enlightenment" and the Ancient age, to the Middle Ages. In the ancient age, great scientific progress was made, as was mathematical progress and technological progress; the same in the modern age; furthermore, people's rights in each age were, relatively, well-respected. The Middle Ages: half a millenium of wars, torture, religious dictatorships, and zero progress. The only progress made during the middle ages was progress in killing and death. Ancient Mayan scripts were destroyed at the "ends" of the Middle Ages by visitors to America(this is technically not the "Middle Ages", but still an era under the control of religious idiocy and closed-mindedness). The medical scripts of Imhotep, the great Priest of Egypt, were destroyed at the onset of the Middle Ages...another wonder we can thank religion and closed-mindedness(including closing off ideas) for. Imhotep was the first real practitioner of medicine, even before Hippocrates. Thanks to the destruction of his work, medicine may have been set back centuries.
----------
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
O'Reilly says
But that's not the same goal as RMS. RMS has repeatedly stated that he'd accept an inferior piece of software, if the superior product was non-free. RMS expects the right to copy the software, read the software, learn how it works, and make modifications to it. RMS wants the software to be unencumbered at to how you use it, where you use it, why you use it, who uses it, when you use it, EXCEPT for the tiny encumberment that you don't deny anybody else the same freedoms.
Until O'Reilly argues on the same wavelength as RMS - which means either attacking the stated goals of RMS, or attacking the means RMS uses to achieve those goals - then O'Reilly won't have an essay worth reading. When you watch a debate you expect PRO and CON for the SAME argument, not PRO and PRO for DIFFERENT arguments.
The only way to fight proprietary software in a world that has largely accepted it is to use copyright against itself. This is precisely what GPL does. GPL is the license of choice for those who believe that no software should be proprietary. That's why the license is "virulent" too.
Some people argue that GPL is "less free" because it cannot be turned proprietary by a third party, as with the BSD license. However, this argument stems from the belief that it's OK for some software to be proprietary--and proprietary software is clearly less free.
In some sort of ideal utopian society without copyright, these issues would be mute because software would be incapable of being sold and thus no economic advantage would be had from closed source. The only way software could be commercially produced in such a society would be by paying programmers / software companies for their focused labor instead their end product. And in fact, this is the ultimate goal of true proponents of Open Source software. Though copyright may be with us for awhile, GPL is a huge step towards reducing its power in the software industry.
Some people choose BSD because they want to let everyone including MS decide what to do with the end software (including reselling it as their own) except they have to include the credit.
Some people choose GPL because they don't want to let everyone including MS decide to resell the end software as their own. Regardless of credit.
Some people choose a MS like EULA because they think their crap peice of software will make them a buck, when in reality if its any inkling of good, MS will probably borg it.
RMS isn't forcing anyone to write the software as GPL. I don't think he owns a gun. Even BG isn't forcing you to use windows, as much as he tries. BSD isn't forcing you to do anything either. None of them are forcing anything. The original author who chooses the license is doing all the forcing. RMS isn't forcing any of those authors. BG does a little by not allowing GPL when you use MS devel tools. Even RMS doesn't do that. Microsoft could *use* gcc if it wanted. It just couldn't edit it. So? Why would MS want to edit it anyway? It works better than most the tools they have as it is.
Just strange. Yes each of these views also has an "optimal" world view tied to it, that IF they all had complete control over the word they'd do something very specific and limiting with that control, in the meantime they work with what they've got and nothing's really changed all that much.
I'm still going to use the GPL because I really don't want to have to take credit for my crap software, but I do want whatever the community does to it to come back to me so I can use it.
Nathan.
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
Copyright should reward authors, but like a money lenders, usuary rates/ pound of flesh NO.
Gatt.org, has a point, when 100' of 1000's of aids deaths are really for the overall good of IP drug patents., is proof that exceptions must exist.
Cutting to chase, society is much the poorer when cowards cost lives AFTER receiving fair compensation. Another metric are the trilions of man hours lost, learning (changing) software systems, boot up times, and applying patches, over and above a open-source possibilities.
Also , copyright is being abused when products are withdrawn from society alltogether - like windows 95, is like saying if we burnt all books older than 70 years, then new authors and society would be better off. revive the arts..boost the economy... similar principle.
Easy to see the conclusion is that choice and viable alternatives must be put above all else..
It's fairly easy to identify a real woman from a fake on the Internet..
A real woman isn't a slut...
Real sluts don't flirt on the Internet
(the fun part is some of the guys on the internet realy are wemen who do NOT want to flirt)
RMS's "Open Source is the One True Way and Closed Source is Evil" stand is the polar opposite of Craig Mundie's "Open Source is evil and communist and Closed Source is the American Way" but I find them equally offensive.
Both should shut the fuck up and let developers release software with whatever license they choose and let the developers (and by extension, users) decide which method wins out...or, more realistically, allow both methods to exist in parallel.
Can you imagine the chaos?
There is a clause in the GPL that says something to the effect "This code is licensed under this version of the GPL or any later version." Removing that clause from your COPYING.TXT pretty much gives you the licence on the Linux kernel. The GPL and LGPL are nothing more than tools in and of themselves. As long as the "any later version clause is removed" then the FSF has no power over a GPLed work.
The FSF also recommends that developers give the original copyrights to the FSF. You don't have to do that either. Basically, using the GPL does not morph a developer into a slack jawed Stallmanite.
It sounds like the GPL as used on the Linux kernel may be what you are looking for. The kernel developers also permit proprietary kernel modules but feel no obligation to maintain module compatibility across kernel releases. It is up to the proprietary vendor to track the kernel in that case. So you may or may not want to remove that addition as well.
I probably could go on, but I hope you get my point.
I have two issues with Michael's editorial comments. First, the analogy of the mugging fails in a critical way. The "compromise" between the mugger and the old lady over the ownership rights of her purse assumes the purse was her's to begin with. In terms of copyright, the copyright owner own the information the copyright is the copying restriction he requires before he will share his information. Basic the copyright owner owns a 'secret' and get to decide under what terms he'll share. To be the mugger the copyright holder would have to be the recieve and not the provider.
The second issue is that the copyright is STILL a compromise between the reciever of a copyright work and the procuder of said work. The compromise is a matter of what copyright owners (or those who intend to produce copyright works) and those who demand said works, on what rights the producer requires/demands before he will share or develop a work. If I don't have enough rights over the works I produce to make a living off of them, I'll have to go into a different line of business.
There is the issue of how one sided the laws involved are. I'd be inclined to say things are grossly out of balance, but if people continue to buy such works and if people do not protest the laws passed by their elected officials then it is really hard to make the argument that the public is upset about the balance of the compromise.
People have the right to bitch and very few people are doing so. Either the public is content, stupid or have no say. In America we cannot get away with claiming we have no say. Frankly I get very insulted by the way some politicians claim to do something for our own good as if I don't know what is good for me, so I really have a problem with presuming most or all Americans stupid. On the other hand, I can't imagine why people would be content with the state of copyright laws. Either the public is content or general unaffected.
Dan
Interesting concept. However I believe that freedom and power are inseperable. When you give anyone freedom you are also giving them power. The freedom to choose how you use software is a power as much as having the freedom to choose how your software is used is a power.
I don't agree with RMS on this. I think he's off base. He advocates freedom--to a point, which isn't freedom at all. I understand where he's coming from, the freedom to license software has become abused, but is this reason to remove it? I don't think so.
With any freedom there are responsibilities. When people abuse the freedom of speech, I can't advocate removing that freedom because they are using it to thier own advantage. I can use my own freedoms to combat their misuse, however. That is the challenge, to combat misuse of freedoms. This is a duty of the masses, and not the elite. We have a responsibility to use our freedom of choice to combat what we see as misuse.
Limiting freedom of any sort isn't the answer. Freedom without power really isn't freedom.
You are right. We need copyright.
I started programming the Macintosh in 1985, when the first native compilers started to become available. At that time, programming was difficult. There was the 3-ring binder version of Inside Macintosh, which cost $150, and that's about it. (Three of us chipped in on one copy). There were also a lot of gotchas.
To help the community, I started the Macintosh One-Liners, which eventually became two lists: one for programmers, and one for users. Each one-liner was 79 characters of text or fewer. The idea was to have a short list to read, so that people could diagnose or avoid the most common problems quickly.
When I got Usenet access, I started sending these out every couple of weeks. I encouraged people to contribute one-liners of their own. I edited these to size and included them in the list. At the end, I included my name and the names of all contributors in the order they got involved. I did not put a copyright notice on the document.
This list recieved some attention. It was published in the second volume of the now-defunct THINKin' CAP magazine. Someone at Apple wrote me that he had a copy on his wall, and it was the first thing he pointed people to when they had questions. I wrote extended explanations of each one-liner for the first USENET Macintosh Programming Guide. I maintained the list for quite a few years. I felt good about being a part of a community which I felt, at the time, was cooperative and mutually beneficial. It was one of the things I felt good about when the rest of the world looked bleak.
In the mid-1990's, I found myself doing less and less Macintosh programming, and fewer people were contributing one-liners, so the list didn't change much, but it was always available by anonymous FTP.
After a year or two, I saw a new USENET Macintosh Programming Guide. I looked for the one-liners, and sure enough, they were there. I read to the end, and my name had been removed, as well as the names of the other contributors. Instead, a list of other names had been placed there, headed by the guy who had sent the contribution to the editor.
I wrote the editor of the new Guide and asked him to put our names back. He refused. I sent all the information about prior publication. He still refused. I even offered to send him a copy of the magazine. He wasn't interested. There was nothing I could do about it, because I had never included a copyright.
Now, I had never wanted to make any money off of this list. I didn't restrict distribution in any way. I didn't make any money off the publication. All I wanted was to be a recognized, contributing member of a cooperative community.
To take somebody's name off their work, however, is a gross insult (to put it mildly). It is a betrayal and a slap in the face. It depressed me about the whole community of developers thing, and even to this day, it still burns me. I deliberately forgot the name of the asswipe who did this (he claimed that another asswipe was involved, too), to avoid unneccessary cleaning bills should I ever meet him. Now, all my memories are tainted with this gross insult.
I learned my lesson, though. The same community of people that insists that copyrights are bad and oppressive to the masses contains plenty of pigfuckers who think nothing of appropriating credit for work. I'm sure that there are plenty who wouldn't do such a thing, but there are not enough to keep the bad apples from doing this and getting away with it. Memories are short, and people are apathetic. As a result, nobody remembers, and nobody cares.
John Carmack probably isn't going to go hungry, and RMS isn't going to be forgotten, but what about the little folks, the folks who could some day do the next great thing if they don't get kicked in the huevos? Some of the abuses of copyright law are awful, but without copyright and freelance lawyers, they are simply screwed.
I think free software is a nice idea, and I hate the Microsoft EULA, but this experience changed me. I spent much of the 1990's working on an academic salary (genteel poverty, for those who have been there), producing software that I persuaded the University to give away free (including source). Now, I'm a changed man. I make lots of money writing proprietary software. Ja, dot's right. I'm a traitor.
Every once in a while I try to work on a free software project, a cross-platform cinematic adventure game editor and environment. Every time I try, a niggling voice in my head tells me that the community doesn't deserve it. From my paraphrase of Nietzsche: "To some people you should not offer your hand, but rather your fist, and it would be better if you were wearing brass knuckles."
People who want a free world and free goodies, who think copyright law is one-sided, start with the face in the mirror! Then do something about your peers. Attempt to learn a modicum of respect for someone's work. Nobody noticed that my name had been removed and brought it to my attention, let alone protested the act. I have no evidence that people are any better today.
In RMS' world, however, I'm evil. I'm trying to obtain power over my client-base by selling them proprietary software. I should license my software under the GPL and give it away for free! Hrmmm. I have no power over my clients, this is BS! Is it any wonder this is coming from a person who has never had to do a hard day's work in his life?
Say I approach a customer and I sell them my software. What has happened? They've willingly entered an arrangement where I give them a software of value and benefit to them, and they give me money and agree to some terms. Have I decreased their freedom? No! Freedoms are alienable, they chose to give away some freedom in exchange for the benefit the software gives them. And has their freedom decreased with respect to being able to change my program, or examine its source-code? No, had they not entered into the contract, they would still not be able to change my program or examine its source-code. I have not taken anything away from them (apart for money, which is an exchange they believe is a fair one).
Say I approach a customer and they think my software isn't worth the price I ask, or they think the license is too restrictive. They don't like the agreement and we go away. I have not made a sale and they have not bought any software. Has their freedom decreased? They were not able to see or use my software before, and they're not able to see and use it now. Where's the decrease in freedom?
So, Mr. Stallman, how am I evil for selling software which is a net benefit (in their opinion!) to my willing clients?
So let's look at the other situation. Say I start my company at great personal financial risk to me and we create this software, but along you come and force us to use the GPL. Suddenly my revenue stream has been for all intents and purposes destroyed and I am bankrupt and destitute after spending years of my life and thousands of dollars of my money working on a risky venture with no reward at the end. Who has the freedom and power in that arrangement?
So let's say in 3 or 4 years I'm doing well, I've sold my software to half of the clients in the target industry, and it's giving them such a competitive advantage that their competitors are coming to me and buying my software now. Am I exerting some sort of evil power? Sorry, try again. Meet what is simply a competitive industry. My software gives their competitors an advantage which is putting their businesses at risk, so they must buy my software or find other ways of restoring competitive advantages. In some respects yes, I now have power over them, but they have the freedom to try other things, or write their own software that does the same job as mine so they still have their freedom. What is the alternative? That we forever restrict what the smarter and more innovative companies and people do to the level of the lowest common demoninator so that the weakest and most ineffectual aren't put at some sort of disadvantage? Where's the power and freedom in that arrangement?
Like it or not, Mr. Stallman, this is a free society and a free market. Success isn't a right, you have to prove your worth to society.
Attempt to paint the FSF as communist fail to address that they are talking about intellectual property, not real goods; additionally, they fail to realize that the FSF focuses its efforts on motivating developers to release code under the GPL, rather than coercing them to do so. To describe them as communist would be akin to describing the United Way as Stalinist.
IMO, until RMS admits that imposing a GPL-or-nothing view on the entire software industry would be just another form of dictatorship, he's just another fanatic with a big mouth, not enough restraint, and a severe case of myopia. My view is much closer to Tim's--let the owner of the code decide how it will be licensed, and let the market figure out the right approach.
Hmm. AIDS research and software for the masses. I just don't see the connection. Actually anybody can use the results of AIDS research paid for by the US government. I don't see any argument or proof that the US government developed the drugs and then gave those formulas to private companies. It seems to me the drug companies took the basic research and developed the drugs and are taking the finicial risks (lawsuits and such).
I believe it is silly to trust RMS. He claims that his exercise of power is good, but everybody elses exercise of power is bad. Maybe it is, but I don't have the freedom to do what I want with GPLed software. And RMS has shown that not only will he try and enforce the GPL, he has tried to make people give ownership of software they've created to the FSF. I don't trust benovelent dictators.
The original purpose of copyright law was to encourage people to make public their knowledge, knowing they could profit exclusively for a limited time. This knowledge would then become public domain. The problem know is this limited time keeps getting extended. That is what O'Reilly is arguing.
Your last argument about religion is just plain stupid. O'Reilly is not saying we should destroy knowledge. He is saying we need to keep working on methods that will make more knowledge available. Look to ACT and how they release GNAT. They control the source until the point they are ready to release a stable version. You are free to change that source and to make suggestions on how to make it better. They also sell support where they will release specific patches and early fixes to you before the next release. These patches and fixes will be released to the public. Some people don't like this, but it works to get out a stable Ada compiler and makes my employer happy, knowing that they can get fixes now, not when somebody in the world decides to fix it.
I'm not sure I understand this comparison. AFAIK rms and O'Reilly are both consequentialists like Mill.
Moreover, this is not as much an ethics issue than it is a matter of social philosophy and politics.
Ok, I'm not going to go into the details of each license, let me just summarize all three. Please correct me if any of my simplifications grossly misrepresented reality.
,that's the ideal end. If that is not possible, then a secondary end should be drastically scaling back the IP system: i.e., reducing the power programmers can excercise over their users, and reducing the terms of copyright/patent/trademark/tradesecret protection to 5-10 years max. However, we should work towards the ideal end -- the elimination of IP altogether. Its barbaric to think that people can "own" ideas: this is what was done in the Middle Ages when the religious nuts owned religious ideas. In the ideal system of no-IP, no licenses would be needed, as no oone would be able to create a license which deprives any user of freedom regarding how they use their software.
Public domain -- any person can do anything they so desire with the program; no acknowledgements of authorship necessary(not a license). This ensures that people will be able to do whatever they want with code.
BSD license -- basically the same as Public domain, except for a few caveats. People have to attribute the author(s) of the program; any redistributions of the same code must abide by BSD license; modifications to the code may be distributed under any license, provided the original code is still BSD-licensed.
GPL -- many of the users freedoms are preserved; they can basically do whatever they want with the program, with the exception of a few re-licensing and distribution issues. Any publicly distributed modifications must be GPLed; any distribution of the code must obide by GPL; and the author(s) must be attributed.
EULA -- users have the right to use the program: little else. Except as granted by fair use and other exceptions, users have no right to redistribute, analyze the source, or even publicly distribute modifications. Given recent events, MS may modify the EULA to be even more restrictive, with the requirement that "MS Word not be used to produce any material of questionable integrity".
IP enthusiasts argue that EULA and variations give program-authors the most "freedom" or "power". This may be true for "original authors", but it gives secondary authors(i.e., people who want to modify an existing program: to make it better) no rights/power. I'd argue that it doesn't even give original authors much power, as it prevents them from accessing source code from which they may generate ideas; thus, reduces their ability to act as authors.
The BSD-license and the GPL-license are two different ways, from my POV, to achieve the same thing -- an open society in which ideas are open, and in which they cannot be controlled. It should be noted that these two licensing systems are means to an end, not ends in of themselves; neither is desireable as the end result. The desireable end result is that no IP system exists, thus there would be no need for GPL/BSD licenses to ensure that code remains free.
BSD license attempts to aid us towards this end by practicing it as much as possible, while ensuring that the original code remain covered under BSD-license. The idea behind BSD is "just make people redistribute under the same license" and don't force them to do anything else(except site credits); i.e., don't force them to redistribute code they created to modify your code in any particular license. This type of system offers full compatability with any other open-sourced project. The problem is, it also offers full compatability with closed-source projects. In other words, it can be a tool which can aid software companies in their ends of enslaving information, in that it can provide them with an idea upon which to work, and then close off the progress they've made. Precisely because BSD-license offers full compatability with any other effort under any license, it provides a potential tool to businesses. Thus, it is a license which offers much in terms of potential benefits(complete compatability with anything), but is also fairly risky(in that companies can use it to their ends).
GPL has taken another approach: allow people to do whateve they want with the code, provided that they redistribute under the GPL, and also distribute any modifications under the GPL. This prevents corporations from using GPLed code as a base upon which to make EULAed code: it thus eliminates that risk. But it also eliminates some benefits in that it is incompatable with many other open-source licenses. It is thus a lower risk, but lower potential benefit license.
So, choosing between GPL and BSD license is really a matter of risk v. benefit. Do you want to offer more potential freedom, at the risk that a corporation could use that freedom as a base to make code licensed such as users don't have freedom? Or do you want to offer more potential safety, at the cost of a little less freedom(but still more freedom than EULA)?
One possible compromose solution is to create an intermediate license, lets say the Open Source Compatable License(OSCL). This license would operate exactly like the GPL license in many respects. Redistributions would have to be under the OSCL. But, and precisely what differentiates the OSCL from the GPL, any modficiations made to the original code would not have to be distributed unde the OSCL. Rather, any modifications have to be distributed under any Open-source license. That is, the programmer modifying the original source code has the option to distribute that modification under the open-sourced code of his choice. This would ensure compatability with all other Open source licenses; however, it would cease to offer protection from corporate raiders after the initial program. I realize that this license, as I presented it, could easily be bypassed by corporations who want to raid my original software to build a closed-source system on top of; i.e., they make modifications to my program, release those modifications under the BSD license. Then, any additional modifications they make(i.e., version updates) could be licensed under EULA. Obviously, terms in the license would have to be added to prevent such.
Let me state again that the end is the elimination of the entire intellectual property system all-together -- at least
As a final note, someone earlier said that EULA does not deny any user their rights, because they voluntarily accepted the terms of the agreement, which restricted their rights to use/distribute/analyze the program. Nonsense. You cannot "sign off" on your rights legitimately. We long ago accepted that people cannot contract into slavery. The same applies here, for the same reasons.
----------
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Power and freedom are very hardy words that stand in much abuse yet stand again for the next debate. You can argue all you want about Freedom and Power and yet find you are arguing about nothing at all. If you can have wars against drugs and wars against terrorism, you can have the Freedom to have Power and the Power of Freedom. You can argue endless rhetoric on how the Power to not give other people the Freedom to have Power over other people's Freedom and then find the next reply to that is another twist on words that seems equally correct.
So to avoid this in a talk about software licenses, I ask you to believe only in real things. The words Power and Freedom don't decide arguments. We're talking about the words "software" and "can do" which are real. What can you do with your software and why can or can't you? And are the reasons just?
Yes...I suppose "just" is another trap in unreality. But its an opinion that I can't say how you answer. I guess Stallman has been asking you to ask yourself a question for a long time now. Is it okay to be fined for pirating software. Or should I say sharing software. Uh! the English language is such a mess. Don't trust your language to win arguments. You must depend on the reasoning of the reader to know what it is you are really talking about and not simply respond to rhetoric on vague words. The readers who do this are most probably not the same people who win arguments or who become President.
George Orwell warned us about this as well. He said "Political language [...] is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." This is about political language but it applies equally here.
However you believe, believe only in real things. Honesty is greater than wit
How 'bout just putting it out with no copyright and a statement to that effect. Some musicians do this, as do some authors and artists. Someone out there is gonna say that this would make it easy for propriety software companies to grab it up and use it without revealing their source code, and not adding to the community. So what? They already do this, GPL won't stop them. Also Lawrence Lessig has a good article in this month's Wired, (which I don't believe is online yet, sorry) about open sourcing closed source code. Well worth reading for you all that are interested in the subject.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
It doesn't follow that O'Reilly is racist, and the proposition that he is racist does not support your argument. This line of argument is little more than a poor ad-hominem.
The goal should be to maximize the amount of good software the the public effectively has access to
Software has to exist to be "effectively accesible". And it doesn't have to be "free-as-in-beer" to be "effectively accessible". Short sighted attempts to benefit consumers by punishing producers simply don't work because they destroy financial incentive to produce. This is why we're stuck with capitalism.
O'Reilly's assertion that "that's silly" is not backed up.
Calling a hotly contested claim "obvious" is indeed silly.
however, it is the only way under our current system to prevent those users from modifying the code, copyrighting it, and excercising undue power over others.
The requirement that the source be made available is not necessary to accomplish the above. In a system without copyright, an author could still produce binary-only derivative works, and sell them.
If progress in software means that you have to spend 1000 dollars for a single program, that progress is useless to the vast majority of us.
Making resources available to everybody in equal quantities is not a sound economic principal.
Lets see, lets compare the Modern age of "enlightenment" and the Ancient age, to the Middle Ages.
"Proof by analogy is fraud" -- Bjarne Stroustrup. And no, your analogy is not analogous.
This analogy makes me feel a bit strange, since I don't like the idea of affirmative action, but do like the GPL. I guess the core reason I don't like affirmative action is that it serves to justify exactly the racism ("that guy only got the job because he is black") that it is trying to counteract. I am not sure the same is true of the GPL, the GPL says "ok, we don't like copyright law, but it exists, so we may as well use it to our own ends". Unlike affirmative action, use of the GPL does not really encourage use of the thing it seeks to counteract.
<correction_because_you're_wrong>
Since no other part of the law amends this to exclude as infringing parties the owners patents on improvements of the invention, no rights to the original invention accrue to the improving patent holder. Apparently, in an earlier version of the law this distinction was drawn more explicitlyFrom Title 35, section 271, paragraph a of the US Code (emphasis added):
</correction_because_you're_wrong>
Hmmm.
On reflection, you're absolutely right! We're in a state of total fascism and I'm being actively prevented from releasing software according to my own desires.
Give me a break. The FSF is expressing it's corporate opinion about its beliefs concerning the social implications of software licensing. They clearly hope that someday, all computer & software users will agree with them. Just as clearly, whether you agree with them or not, their opinions don't carry the force of law and you can ignore the FSF, Bradley Kuhn, Richard Stallman as much as you want and no negative consequences will likely accrue to you other than a (probably small, hopefully growing) percentage of users simply won't use software you write.
You claim the FSF is not coercing and you are correct EXCEPT, the WANT TO BE ABLE TO and are working toward that goal. RMS has publicly stated that he would like nothing better than for a law to be passed banning non-free software.
From the GNU Manifesto
From the GNU Manifesto
When you pay $10K for a car you are paying for the entire cost of making and delivering that car plus some profit to the dealer and car maker.
When you buy a piece of software like Photoshop ($600) or MS Word ($200) You are NOT paying for the entire cost of making Photoshop or MS Word, you are paying only a very small fraction. Some companies who have millions of dollars, have the money to pay programmers to make the software they want. In this case the company paid the entire costs of the software and therefore it belongs to them and they can do what they want with it.
When you buy a pre-packaged copy of a commercial piece of software you are rarely if ever paying the full costs which is why you don't own it and are only buying a license.
If we make it impossible for software to be sold this way, software that can only be made by that model (most applications, nearly all games) will stop being made. Database programmers, IS guys writting custom patches to apache will still have work. Application programs and game programmers will not because no single user can afford to pay for the entire development.
All You who You feel You are the creator of Your code and You have the right to control how Your code will be used, are You as sure abot this Your property? In my case everythiting i did is just a dot on the end of sentence which is written by Turing, von Neumann, Stallman and others.
:-) you may also share it with bill...
If you want to control your code, please keep it in your bathroom
rudo
Ethics is moral philosophy. It studies what is good and how a moral person - an individualOn the other hand, social philosophy studies how people should organize themselves to achieve a better society, a collective.
Although you could argue that especially the view of rms is based on Kantian ethics, you would be oversimplifying things. Free software is not just an instrument of individual moral philosophy, but it is mainly a political tool to achieve a better society.
In the traditional world of copyright, goods are not licenced, they are sold. I can pay money to buy a book or CD or whatever and I do not have to agree to a licence or anything similar, I am just bound by regular copyright laws. So why do software companies think they can get away with not selling me software but making me pay for a 'licence' to use the software, while by law, it is only copyrighted?
I do not think licences for copyrighted works should be upheld by law. I'd like to buy software, and copyright law will tell me what I can and cannot do with it, not some stupid shrinkwrapped, denying everything, click-through EULA.
I mean, how can I pay money for software whose licence tells me that it is not guaranteed to work, or even do anything, that there is no warranty or expectation that it wil be useful, that I can only use it in certain restricted ways (eg can't publish benckmarks, write disparaging articles about M$ etc), that I may not resell it and generally that having bought it I have no rights and cannot expect anything from it.
I'm not sure of the solution to this, or how GPL software would work if there were no software licences, but I do know that currently, the way software is 'licenced', just using copyright law, is pretty flawed.
For all I know maybe we need a new form of IP, somewhere between copyright and patents, which is uniform and which all software should be sold under, the same way all books, music and art are currently sold under copyright law (ie without the possibility of the publisher/author tagging a 'licence' or T&Cs with it too). Conversely, another form of IP would be between copyright and public domain, for Free (libre) software, which recognises that this software is meant to be modified and extended while recognising those individuals whose work it is.
anyway, enough of my ranting now.
That article argues that contract would replace IP. Those things which are covered by IP in today's world are easy to copy (in digital form); the article postulates technological means of catching 'IP contract' breaches, but you know as well as I do that the nature of digital information disables these attempts (save for their legal protection, as in the DMCA). The thing about contract is that it doesn't apply to third parties.
Look at SDMI. It's all well and good, but the problem for the 'content owners' is that non-SDMI compliant devices exist, so it's protection is limited to a narrow scope of 'approved' devices. What is to prevent entrepreneurial disablement of SDMI through the marketing of non-SDMI devices? (except the force of a possible law, which would not exist in your anarchist world).
Ease of copying without detection, and the inapplicability of contract to third parties, confounds this libertarian / anarchist theory of 'IP contract'. All it takes is for me to take your content, agreed under contract, and undetectably copy it and give the copy to someone else, for the system to break down.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.