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RMS says Creative Commons Unacceptable
Mr A Coward writes "Richard Stallman has stated in an interview that he no longer supports Creative Commons licenses. In the interview carried on LinuxP2P.com, and which is largely about the P2P and DRM issues, Stallman ends by saying: 'I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.' He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works." The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all. What's your take? Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?
RMS: People have a right to share copies of published works; P2P programs are simply a means to do it more usefully, and that is a good thing.
If we are going to mince words maybe we should start with an honest appraisal of the difference between sharing (as in borrowing a book) and copying. All of us who make a living being creative understand the shortcomings of current copyright legislation and know that we need people to think about creative work in new ways if we are going to take IP law into the 21st century; we know tilting in favor of multi-national corporations at the expense of individuals is a mistake, but we are not going to get anywhere with the type of lazy thinking which asserts things like, "If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong." I'll take Lawrence Lessig's ideas over Mr. Stallman's any day.
If it's true (as RMS says in the interview) that the various Creative Commons licenses are "more different than similar", and if they differ on issues you care about, then yes, I would have to agree with Stallman that they need to be discussed separately, that you can't make a blanket statement saying either "I support CC licenses" or "I reject CC licenses". If some Creative Commons licenses are worth using and others aren't, it would be best to stop talking about them collectively as "Creative Commons licenses" and instead discuss them under their own names.
I think it's time we just start ignoring RMS. Once the national media noticed him about 5-6 years ago, his ego has tipped the scales. He's so far off the deep end that I for one don't want to be associated with his ideas.
It's like we're all saying "Open source is a good thing", and he's now picking up that banner, saying "Unless it's completely open and completely free in every possible sense of the word, it's wrong". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying "Open source is a good thing".
sig?
I stopped listening to him sometime around the GNU/Linux debacle. He doesn't really provide much value to anyone who doesn't want to be hard left.
Don't get me wrong, the man did some great things in bringing forth the Free Software movement, but now it seems like his goal is to destroy everything that doesn't fit his ideals, and that's just as dangerous as what he opposes.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
What Stallman is saying sounds, as usual, intellectually consistent. Because some licenses that are called Creative Commons licenses include restrictions that Stallman does not support, Stallman will not endorse the Creative Commons brand. In other words, he will not automatically give you a pat on the back just because you use a Creative Commons license; he wants to know what the terms of the license are first.
Sounds fine to me. I've never been a big supporter of Creative Commons for much the same reason. All Creative Commons seems to be, to me, is a collection of license that someone has paid a lawyer to draft up and then donated that work to the public. You can pick and choose between the licenses and their clauses. It's a generous donation and it's very handy.
Then again, I've never seen how Creative Commons amounts to the "social movement" that people make it out to be. Stallman, whether you agree with him or not, seems devoutly intent on shaking up the foundations of the modern concept of intellectual property. By comparison, Creative Commons licenses seem like little more than tools for helping people navigate the status quo.
Breakfast served all day!
Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?
Absolutely! The organization as a whole is trying to better society. I read many of Lawrence Lessig's articles and agree with just about everything he says. His goal is to provide options. A full range of options. Pick the ones that suit your needs and ignore the rest.
After all, isn't that what we do with our Linux systems? We pick the distro and packages we want and ignore the rest. If you don't like OpenOffice it doesn't mean you shouldn't use Linux! Just don't use the parts you don't like!
Developers: We can use your help.
If I write something, I get to pick the license. If Stallman doesn't like it, I'll sleep just fine at night and will have no problems looking at myself in the mirror.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
There are many times when "Screw you guys, I'm going home" is a valid response, but Stallman has done it so many times, about so many Open Source projects that don't adhere to Pope Stallman's ex cathedra Encyclical on The True and Only GPL that it's lost all meaning. Yeah, RMS, we've figured out nothing that you haven't personally blessed is pure and holy enough for you. Next question.
Perhaps his most impressive feat is making Eric Raymond look reasonable by comparison...
Crow T. Trollbot
I like the GPL and use it for software, but it's just not right for things like text. For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:
.)
I love the Creative Commons. I think the Creative Commons is great as a whole, because some of its licenses are not unacceptable. In fact, I want Larry Lessig to have my baby. Wait that's not feasible.
(Changes in bold
What's right for software is not right for matters of opinion or fact. The distinction between sources and binaries don't matter here and actually confuse the right decisions. Nor is there any reason to believe that someone would get anything out of the ability to revise and extend anyone else's words. Okay, it might make sense for a collaborative manual, but I think there are many cases where the right leads to the trouble we're seeing with the clever editors of the Wikipedia.
That's who RMS is.
If you wanted someone in a stuffed shirt that business people could relate to, you should have invited Bruce Perens instead.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
No, Stallman is not slipping, reality is.
If it were anyone else they could be safely ignored, but RMS brought us the GPL, and it was through his uncomprimising commitment to his vision that we have the movement of Open Source today. Yes people - Open Source, he is one of the fathers of Open Source even if he has disowned his own child. The point is that the man is uncomprimising to the point of being irrational.
But is he - in this instance - being irrational? Well, the creative commons typically used by Flickr, is simply a means of easily defining the rights you are providing. It can mean a number of things, and I think he has a point - that its confusing; you have to read the rights for every bit of work, rather than being able to trust that a creative commons mark means you have certain rights.
I still wouldn't use the GPL for writing or music because the GPL has clauses specifically aimed at software. There is no "source code" for music, and no obligation to distribute the score of the music along with the audio recordings for example. However, the creative commons is a diluted concept if you don't gauranttee certain rights to people, and they have to dig to see what their rights actually are.
Stallmans problem isn't one of intellect as such, but rather poor communication. He communicates in a uncomprimising and arrogant way; his way or the highway; and is unwilling to be part of a bigger team that he has no direct control over. That is why Open Source came about - we escaped the limits of Stallmans retoric.
Stallman still doesn't get Open Source I think - The Hurd being an example more of Cathedral style than Bazzar style development. Open Source has overtaken him for a reason, and that reason is a positive feedback cycle generated by a community of willing participants.
The big difference between open source and free software is the uncomprimising ideological dogma of Stallman. Free Software was about the Stallmans dictatorship; his word was law in that universe. Open Source on the other hand starts with the principles of Free Software, but does not insist the developers have the same ideological passions as Stallman.
That said, Open Source has not diluted the principle (as the Creative Commoms may have) by retaining a clear statement about what is and is not Open Source.
Now maybe in a reality-free zone where everybody works for the common good and nobody takes more than his* fair share, that would be a reasonable thing to pass off as a fact. But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.
Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection. The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.
So, the ideologues trying to push unproven ideas on the rest of us are people like you, people who make strained arguments that somehow society needs to bear the costs and complexities of IP law.
Go prove your case before you whine about Stallman.
In a way, history is repeating itself.
During the 1850's there were all these groups that wanted to work out a friendly solution so that the slave states could get along with the free states. Rules to be nicer to slaves, shorter slave terms, more clearly defined boundaries, and so on and so on. Well they didn't get it, it was an all or nothing game. The very nature of the beast was coercive and restrictive in a way that could not survive the industrial revolution.
Well today, there are people who want a "compromise" with the copyright system. A shorter term here, a nicer enforcement there, more controll to the original author here, and so on and so on. What these people don't understand that the very nature of beast centers arround coercing how people can use and manipulate information at their disposal - the anti thesis of the information age. The only kind of copyright that can survive the information age, is one that can not be enforced.
Instead of crying about that, or clinging to old ways, what people need to do is learn how to make money from content services and not from content controll.
Has there actually been cases of brands being stolen in this way? Everyone seems to talk about it as though it were inevitable, but it seems plausible that even if copyright laws allowed a rival company to steal it's franchise, actual fans would always prefer the original makers, and view the copy as an entirely separate work. While they can steal ideas, they can't steal people. A rival company may try to do the Simpsons without Groening, but it will flop, over and over.
I posit that such a nightmare scenario is entirely illusionary, especially for franchises that are worth protecting.
That said, the busybox objection was quite reasonable.
1) The objection was reasonable
2) He tried to comment
3) He couldn't make his way past their filters.
I hope he is moderated up to 5 insightful/informative, so the drafters of the GPL3 may see it.
I don't know of ANY good way of constructing filters so that you can get all the messages you need to get without drowning in spam and other garbage. It's a real problem. But the reported attempt doesn't sound like a phenomenally acceptable filter.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.