Yes, but without IP half of these companies would not spend money on any research. Have you looked inside of your computer lately ? Just about every part is protected by IP laws, you can't just start duplicating G400s and hope that nothing happens.
And this somehow encourages innovation? Open information encourages innovation by providing the basis for future works based on the original.
Again, you are without any support for your assertion. You imply that we need ip laws for large capital investments. The problem is, such a large part of the money spent in those investments is just for dealing with the legalities of what's being invented, coupled with the fact that each competitor in the industry must reinvent the wheel to prevent being sued rather than catapult from accumulated open knowledge, there's less money for actual innovation than there would be if there were no intellectual property monopolies. In other words, intellectual property as currently envisioned creates inefficiencies in the market and huge barriers to entry that vastly overwhelm the monetary incentive for innovation supposedly offered by the patent/copyright systems. And don't even get me started on how lawyers regularly advise their clients *not* to keep up with the latest work in their fields for fear that they'll read something someone else figured out and it will make their IP claims invalid.
I assume you have a control group for your very scientific assertion that the last 300 years of innovations were based on intellectual property alone.
I at least provide the anecdote of Salk- innovation without ip. Here's another- the legality of reverse engineering allowed the PC revolution to proceed through the creation of IBM clones. Had this been found to be illegal, I assert that slashdot would not exist and computers would still be tools that only corporate and academic scientists were allowed to see for the most part. I could go on, but I'll wait until you back up your inane assertion.
I'm sympathetic to your point, but this is a problem I see in ip arguments a lot: you have asserted the harm without justifying it.
What is wrong exactly with copyrighting a data structure? You seem to imply (but do not state) that even very simple data structures could be copyrighted if moderately complex ones could, and that this would be bad (inefficient?).
The CDDB example is one which provides a pleasantly evil comparison, but it's not perfect- most people's beef isn't so much that they are copyrighting their database structure (although that's a problem), but that they stole community labor for the content of that database.
I propose the following, and perhaps others can add to it: copyrighting data structures is unreasonable both because it creates the possibility of accidentally misusing someone else's data structure if it's too simple (such accidental duplication is vanishingly unlikely with a book or song length work), and because the metadata itself is not original content in the appropriate sense of the term- it is more like an algorithm (it's a rule-based system of organization) and thus more appropriate for patent consideration than for copyright.
I really wish more people saw the GPL as having the hampering effect that it does; let it truly be free; let the market forces and the open source cloners and innovators determine how the code evolves and branches. If someone uses it commercially, make them give credit, but don't make them give up their value-added code which they make their living with. If the changes are useful, someone will clone 'em! If they can't, then the company is really adding something special; don't restrict or disincent them from doing so by forcing them to give up the rights and privacy of their proprietary addition.
In a truly free market (i.e., without the temporary monopolies granted by "intellectual property"), the GPL would be redundant because everyone would already have all the freedoms you describe. The GPL isn't a virus, it's a vaccine. It keeps the intellectual property market from destroying itself. Salk could have taken a patent out on the polio vaccine, but he said that "would be like patenting the sun". We don't have many people with that much character these days.
Forced infectious freedom isn't freedom.
What a lovely little rhetorical flourish you add with the phrase "infectious". How is this different from laws which coercively restrict your freedom? The old dictum "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" applies here. The idea of enforced freedoms requires that a little liberty be given up so that more total liberty will be available for more people. The GPL is just an example of the democratic system at work.
Intellectual property law (rather than the GPL) is the root of the problem, creating artificial monopolies without achieving its stated purpose of fostering innovation. This is what clogs up the market, and the GPL is the most powerful weapon available to keep information and ideas available to the public rather than in the hands of faceless corporations.
Your grandchildren, if they are ever born, will never see the Dylan albums because the Sonny Bono III Copyright Extension act will keep them locked up with Mickey and Goofy in a perpetual string of "limited time"'s, as the constitution allows.
Bryguy
Trolls have points sometimes
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 4
But this post is just FUD. Freedom is a funny thing. Ever hear the phrase "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose"? Maximizing liberty means restraining certain actions, i.e., those which take away liberty. Otherwise we have nothing but the rule of the strongest/most monopolistic. You could say "the GPL is coercing me to be free" much like you could say "these murder statutes inhibit my god-given right to kill people", but that's just silly.
Microsoft has a powerful rhetorical sledgehammer with the word "viral", which conjures up images of disease and hacked, crashing computers. Although going by the any press is good press dictum many people will hear this and learn it's not a bad thing, it's still important to formulate a counter-rhetoric to this feint.
How can we extend the analogy? The GPL is to a virus as M$'s EULA's are to shackles? The analogy won't extend properly because it's based on a faulty premise- that virii are all bad by definition.
I propose the following: free software is more like the polio vaccine. When asked if he was going to patent the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk said that would be 'like patenting the sun'. Free software doesn't restrict freedom like a virus that crashes your computer or destroys your body, it preserves freedom by making sure that no one can take away the rights you've got, just as the polio vaccine prevents polio from ravaging the body. So which one's the vaccine and which one's the virus- that's the question we should be asking.
I think the metaphor is apt and ought to embarass Micro$oft a little.
Bryguy
ps- feel free to use this metaphor. It's free as in speech.
It sounds like MTV's new marketing campaign
on
Shared Source?
·
· Score: 3
Controversial Call Removed
The now-infamous "Call #31" has been removed from from the voicemails page. A new, edited version of the call should be released soon. Check Napster for the old version.
This is from the front page of psychoexgirlfriend.com. I imagine the guy had issues with his webmaster where they felt uncomfortable with some of the content. It's not baseball and apple pie or anything, but it certainly doesn't seem to be an IP violation.
What about the "psycho ex-girlfriend" guy. If I recall correctly, he couldn't afford to keep up with the demand on his web site, but you could find all the messages up on napster. Voila, instant legal distribution machine.
Unfortunately this isn't the most wholesome example, but it does demonstrate something. If the public domain weren't so impoverished, it's not hard to imagine that the "heavenly jukebox" we all want wouldn't be centrally located, but instead would be a distributed network like freenet. Why? Because the RIAA may be right that there wouldn't be the same incentive to throw millions and billions into distribution and marketing if copyright weren't such a racket. So no one wants to take on the task on their own? We'll distribute the processing/storage. This is where their view of IP breaks down, that somehow their extreme view of copyright is the only thing standing between us and a musicless society. What nonsense.
In fact, the whole web is peer to peer. Gnutella is nothing but a real time directory for what turns out to be http file transfers. It just works faster than the web does. It may be difficult to draw a principled distinction between the two.
So, I have this idea, and I think it's pretty good. If I had the time, I'd do it myself, but maybe someone else will pick it up and run with it.
Here goes. What does p2p get you? Free distribution. What do you lose? Centralized control. So the materials best suited for distribution over a p2p network are 1. things you want as widely disseminated as possible and 2. things that don't have to be constantly updated and revised.
My idea, basically, is to use napster/gnutella as a publishing medium for original content that is specifically designed for p2p. If this works, you can distribute a reasonably large file over a very large network in a very short period of time, and here's the kicker- if your stuff gets popular, you don't have to pay out big bucks for akamai and better server hardware.
So what kind of content would fly? I think sketch comedy that gets updated daily would be ok, or better yet, a comedic news program. I love reading Suck.com on my palm pilot on the train every morning, I wish someone would do a Not Necessarily the News style 5-10minute news bit every morning and distribute it over napster/gnutella with a predictable filename (maybe newsTellaDDMMYY.mp3 or something like that). Eventually you could get sponsors and integrate little ads into your content, or maybe you'd spark a phenomenon and some radio network would pick you up or something, or maybe even just sell archives of your work on cdrom or something. But it seems like the way to really capitalize on the medium is to take advantage of the fact that a public media distribution network has been made available to you. It's not the web, it's not tv, and promoting your stuff i nthis media doesn't work the same way it does in these other media. If you publicise the fact that you're doing it and update consistently and often, and actually produce some funny/interesting content, I think you'd be onto something really big. Let me know how it goes if you try it.
I'd bet that encoding something in DNA constitutes an "encryption device" under the DMCA.
There needs to be a very dramatic sea change in opinion in this country to take on the monied interests behind this one.
Bryguy
Frank Herbert also- The White Plague
on
The DNA Bomb
·
· Score: 2
I think that's what it was called. It was about a virus that only killed... well, you should read the book. Hint: it wasn't white people, as you might expect from the title. Excellent writing, not set in the Dune universe. I highly recommend it.
Everyone has an equal opportunity to earn $300 and buy a copy of the code so that they can abide by the laws. This is obviously sufficient to provide for equality under the law. If you're an evil conservative bastard, that is.
Where are the libertarians on this one? Unequal bargaining power doesn't negate a contract, right? Obey the social contract!
Nice title. Very persuasive. Doesn't NBC own that catch-phrase?
Now, regarding your post. It's true there may still be some freeware out there if not for the GPL. But the GPL is a truly revolutionary document because it protects the rights of all those who come after you. Pretty much every other license compromises with proprietary concerns, but there is no room for compromise here. Hoarding ideas is wrong, and the GPL separates the men from the boys.
The GPL may not be the best license for commerce, where "commerce" is defined as the wealth of corporations rather than the total value that exists in society. But every time someone hoards an idea by making it proprietary, they take an idea away from society by either charging for it or even refusing to let it be used (this is called "blocking" with patents). So there's an important reason why people go apeshit when companies try to dilute the GPL- the GPL, in addition to being a strong license to protect the accumulated knowledge of the public against the hoarding tendencies of corporations who own IP, encourages people to take a strong stance on sharing and is thus as much an inspiration as a shield. So you can say that without the GPL we'd have just as much free software today, but I think you miss a big part of the motivations for writing free software when you suggest that.
I've been using 0.9 since it was announced a few days ago, and I have to tell you it's MUCH faster than the previous versions, and doesn't make me miss IE at all. I'm slowly making the conversion from using windows for all my desktop tasks to using only free software, and not having a browser that could run effectively on my redhat 6.2 box with only 64 megs of ram has, until now, been a real pain. But 0.9 runs very nicely with my setup, and I'm not sure what you think would make it better. I think they've figured the big picture rather nicely, and their plans are beginning to come together.
You may not be a troll, but you're wrong.
Bryguy
when neverwinter nights comes out, my conversion will be complete:)
All that GNU software wouldn't have been free for Caldera to capitalize if it HADN'T been for the GPL. This guy is clearly off his rocker.
Bryguy
Does anyone else think the Caldera icon looks like a blue mickey mouse on a balloon?
It's not artificial leverage.
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 2
It's not artificial leverage. Unions give workers the leverage that they, as a similarly situated market segment, deserve in the economy. If money is influence, one powerful employer has the influence that say 20 employees do, the employees together have more influence than that one rich employer in the issues that affect them all in common. The fact that their specific jobs are specialized doesn't change the fact that they all depend on corporations for their livelihoods, which gives them one HUGE similarity. Corporations are legal liability shields for the rich which give them unfair advantages in labor negotiations. Shouldn't workers have a similar right to "incorporate", so to speak, to act together through a representative body just as corporations do for owners?
This is a typical neo-conservative response. First they say free the market from regulation, then they say that employees trying to freely associate and set the price of their labor is against the free market. Whatever, dude.
They should have taken a page from Richard Stallman's playbook. The beauty of free software is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel everytime you want to perform common tasks like censorship:)
Bryguy
Re:Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
on
SQL Over FreeNet
·
· Score: 2
Heh.
Wait 'til I get started! Now where was I?
Australia.
Ah yes. Have you ever heard of Aristotle? Socrates? PLATO?!
This is such a great argument. This forces the MPAA to pit its absurd assumption against another one, that programs should be copywriteable, so if the MPAA wins this argument at this level of appeal then the entire non-free software industry will be shitting a brick. Not the best argument logically, but strategically it's pure genius!
I have another suggestion: Hal Abelson gave a speech at Ars Digita in which he went the other way- that literary expression, when it's good, uses algorithmic/programming elements. This breaks down the barrier between speech and code in an interesting way, that is, not by arguing that code is speech, but in fact that speech is code.
Here is an excerpt from the abstract for this talk:
"I contend that at this moment in history we are at the beginning of an intellectual revolution based on the assimilation of computational ideas into our culture. We have been
programming universal computers for about 50 years. The practice of computation arose from military, scientific, business, and accounting applications. Just as the early
Egyptian surveyors probably thought of themselves as experts in the development and application of surveying instruments, we have developed a priestly cult of computer
scientists. But, as I have pointed out: Computer Science is not a science, and its ultimate significance has little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution
in the way we think and in the way we express what we think."
You can stream the talk (realvideo format) here, or you can download it here.
Bryguy
ps- another thought- the difference between source code and machine code is that source code is specifically designed to be comprehensible to humans, hence it is expressive of an idea rather than pure instruction.
Slashdot Mirror
And this somehow encourages innovation? Open information encourages innovation by providing the basis for future works based on the original.
Again, you are without any support for your assertion. You imply that we need ip laws for large capital investments. The problem is, such a large part of the money spent in those investments is just for dealing with the legalities of what's being invented, coupled with the fact that each competitor in the industry must reinvent the wheel to prevent being sued rather than catapult from accumulated open knowledge, there's less money for actual innovation than there would be if there were no intellectual property monopolies. In other words, intellectual property as currently envisioned creates inefficiencies in the market and huge barriers to entry that vastly overwhelm the monetary incentive for innovation supposedly offered by the patent/copyright systems. And don't even get me started on how lawyers regularly advise their clients *not* to keep up with the latest work in their fields for fear that they'll read something someone else figured out and it will make their IP claims invalid.
Bryguy
I assume you have a control group for your very scientific assertion that the last 300 years of innovations were based on intellectual property alone.
I at least provide the anecdote of Salk- innovation without ip. Here's another- the legality of reverse engineering allowed the PC revolution to proceed through the creation of IBM clones. Had this been found to be illegal, I assert that slashdot would not exist and computers would still be tools that only corporate and academic scientists were allowed to see for the most part. I could go on, but I'll wait until you back up your inane assertion.
Bryguy
I'm sympathetic to your point, but this is a problem I see in ip arguments a lot: you have asserted the harm without justifying it.
What is wrong exactly with copyrighting a data structure? You seem to imply (but do not state) that even very simple data structures could be copyrighted if moderately complex ones could, and that this would be bad (inefficient?).
The CDDB example is one which provides a pleasantly evil comparison, but it's not perfect- most people's beef isn't so much that they are copyrighting their database structure (although that's a problem), but that they stole community labor for the content of that database.
I propose the following, and perhaps others can add to it: copyrighting data structures is unreasonable both because it creates the possibility of accidentally misusing someone else's data structure if it's too simple (such accidental duplication is vanishingly unlikely with a book or song length work), and because the metadata itself is not original content in the appropriate sense of the term- it is more like an algorithm (it's a rule-based system of organization) and thus more appropriate for patent consideration than for copyright.
Bryguy
In a truly free market (i.e., without the temporary monopolies granted by "intellectual property"), the GPL would be redundant because everyone would already have all the freedoms you describe. The GPL isn't a virus, it's a vaccine. It keeps the intellectual property market from destroying itself. Salk could have taken a patent out on the polio vaccine, but he said that "would be like patenting the sun". We don't have many people with that much character these days.
Forced infectious freedom isn't freedom.
What a lovely little rhetorical flourish you add with the phrase "infectious". How is this different from laws which coercively restrict your freedom? The old dictum "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" applies here. The idea of enforced freedoms requires that a little liberty be given up so that more total liberty will be available for more people. The GPL is just an example of the democratic system at work.
Intellectual property law (rather than the GPL) is the root of the problem, creating artificial monopolies without achieving its stated purpose of fostering innovation. This is what clogs up the market, and the GPL is the most powerful weapon available to keep information and ideas available to the public rather than in the hands of faceless corporations.
Bryguy
They don't stand in line over there.
They queue.
Bryguy
They were just accounting for the bloat in the next version of Windows :)
Bryguy
Your grandchildren, if they are ever born, will never see the Dylan albums because the Sonny Bono III Copyright Extension act will keep them locked up with Mickey and Goofy in a perpetual string of "limited time"'s, as the constitution allows.
Bryguy
But this post is just FUD. Freedom is a funny thing. Ever hear the phrase "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose"? Maximizing liberty means restraining certain actions, i.e., those which take away liberty. Otherwise we have nothing but the rule of the strongest/most monopolistic. You could say "the GPL is coercing me to be free" much like you could say "these murder statutes inhibit my god-given right to kill people", but that's just silly.
Bryguy
Microsoft has a powerful rhetorical sledgehammer with the word "viral", which conjures up images of disease and hacked, crashing computers. Although going by the any press is good press dictum many people will hear this and learn it's not a bad thing, it's still important to formulate a counter-rhetoric to this feint.
How can we extend the analogy? The GPL is to a virus as M$'s EULA's are to shackles? The analogy won't extend properly because it's based on a faulty premise- that virii are all bad by definition.
I propose the following: free software is more like the polio vaccine. When asked if he was going to patent the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk said that would be 'like patenting the sun'. Free software doesn't restrict freedom like a virus that crashes your computer or destroys your body, it preserves freedom by making sure that no one can take away the rights you've got, just as the polio vaccine prevents polio from ravaging the body. So which one's the vaccine and which one's the virus- that's the question we should be asking.
I think the metaphor is apt and ought to embarass Micro$oft a little.
Bryguy
ps- feel free to use this metaphor. It's free as in speech.
I'm Itchy. Do I have GPL?
Bryguy
The now-infamous "Call #31" has been removed from from the voicemails page. A new, edited version of the call should be released soon. Check Napster for the old version.
This is from the front page of psychoexgirlfriend.com. I imagine the guy had issues with his webmaster where they felt uncomfortable with some of the content. It's not baseball and apple pie or anything, but it certainly doesn't seem to be an IP violation.
Bryguy
What about the "psycho ex-girlfriend" guy. If I recall correctly, he couldn't afford to keep up with the demand on his web site, but you could find all the messages up on napster. Voila, instant legal distribution machine.
Unfortunately this isn't the most wholesome example, but it does demonstrate something. If the public domain weren't so impoverished, it's not hard to imagine that the "heavenly jukebox" we all want wouldn't be centrally located, but instead would be a distributed network like freenet. Why? Because the RIAA may be right that there wouldn't be the same incentive to throw millions and billions into distribution and marketing if copyright weren't such a racket. So no one wants to take on the task on their own? We'll distribute the processing/storage. This is where their view of IP breaks down, that somehow their extreme view of copyright is the only thing standing between us and a musicless society. What nonsense.
Bryguy
In fact, the whole web is peer to peer. Gnutella is nothing but a real time directory for what turns out to be http file transfers. It just works faster than the web does. It may be difficult to draw a principled distinction between the two.
So, I have this idea, and I think it's pretty good. If I had the time, I'd do it myself, but maybe someone else will pick it up and run with it.
Here goes. What does p2p get you? Free distribution. What do you lose? Centralized control. So the materials best suited for distribution over a p2p network are 1. things you want as widely disseminated as possible and 2. things that don't have to be constantly updated and revised.
My idea, basically, is to use napster/gnutella as a publishing medium for original content that is specifically designed for p2p. If this works, you can distribute a reasonably large file over a very large network in a very short period of time, and here's the kicker- if your stuff gets popular, you don't have to pay out big bucks for akamai and better server hardware.
So what kind of content would fly? I think sketch comedy that gets updated daily would be ok, or better yet, a comedic news program. I love reading Suck.com on my palm pilot on the train every morning, I wish someone would do a Not Necessarily the News style 5-10minute news bit every morning and distribute it over napster/gnutella with a predictable filename (maybe newsTellaDDMMYY.mp3 or something like that). Eventually you could get sponsors and integrate little ads into your content, or maybe you'd spark a phenomenon and some radio network would pick you up or something, or maybe even just sell archives of your work on cdrom or something. But it seems like the way to really capitalize on the medium is to take advantage of the fact that a public media distribution network has been made available to you. It's not the web, it's not tv, and promoting your stuff i nthis media doesn't work the same way it does in these other media. If you publicise the fact that you're doing it and update consistently and often, and actually produce some funny/interesting content, I think you'd be onto something really big. Let me know how it goes if you try it.
Bryguy
I'd bet that encoding something in DNA constitutes an "encryption device" under the DMCA.
There needs to be a very dramatic sea change in opinion in this country to take on the monied interests behind this one.
Bryguy
I think that's what it was called. It was about a virus that only killed... well, you should read the book. Hint: it wasn't white people, as you might expect from the title. Excellent writing, not set in the Dune universe. I highly recommend it.
Bryguy
Everyone has an equal opportunity to earn $300 and buy a copy of the code so that they can abide by the laws. This is obviously sufficient to provide for equality under the law. If you're an evil conservative bastard, that is.
Where are the libertarians on this one? Unequal bargaining power doesn't negate a contract, right? Obey the social contract!
Bryguy
Nice title. Very persuasive. Doesn't NBC own that catch-phrase?
Now, regarding your post. It's true there may still be some freeware out there if not for the GPL. But the GPL is a truly revolutionary document because it protects the rights of all those who come after you. Pretty much every other license compromises with proprietary concerns, but there is no room for compromise here. Hoarding ideas is wrong, and the GPL separates the men from the boys.
The GPL may not be the best license for commerce, where "commerce" is defined as the wealth of corporations rather than the total value that exists in society. But every time someone hoards an idea by making it proprietary, they take an idea away from society by either charging for it or even refusing to let it be used (this is called "blocking" with patents). So there's an important reason why people go apeshit when companies try to dilute the GPL- the GPL, in addition to being a strong license to protect the accumulated knowledge of the public against the hoarding tendencies of corporations who own IP, encourages people to take a strong stance on sharing and is thus as much an inspiration as a shield. So you can say that without the GPL we'd have just as much free software today, but I think you miss a big part of the motivations for writing free software when you suggest that.
Bryguy
I've been using 0.9 since it was announced a few days ago, and I have to tell you it's MUCH faster than the previous versions, and doesn't make me miss IE at all. I'm slowly making the conversion from using windows for all my desktop tasks to using only free software, and not having a browser that could run effectively on my redhat 6.2 box with only 64 megs of ram has, until now, been a real pain. But 0.9 runs very nicely with my setup, and I'm not sure what you think would make it better. I think they've figured the big picture rather nicely, and their plans are beginning to come together. You may not be a troll, but you're wrong. Bryguy when neverwinter nights comes out, my conversion will be complete :)
All that GNU software wouldn't have been free for Caldera to capitalize if it HADN'T been for the GPL. This guy is clearly off his rocker.
Bryguy
Does anyone else think the Caldera icon looks like a blue mickey mouse on a balloon?
It's not artificial leverage. Unions give workers the leverage that they, as a similarly situated market segment, deserve in the economy. If money is influence, one powerful employer has the influence that say 20 employees do, the employees together have more influence than that one rich employer in the issues that affect them all in common. The fact that their specific jobs are specialized doesn't change the fact that they all depend on corporations for their livelihoods, which gives them one HUGE similarity. Corporations are legal liability shields for the rich which give them unfair advantages in labor negotiations. Shouldn't workers have a similar right to "incorporate", so to speak, to act together through a representative body just as corporations do for owners?
This is a typical neo-conservative response. First they say free the market from regulation, then they say that employees trying to freely associate and set the price of their labor is against the free market. Whatever, dude.
Bryguy
Heh.
Wait 'til I get started! Now where was I?
Australia.
Ah yes. Have you ever heard of Aristotle? Socrates? PLATO?!
yes...
morons.
It's Gerald Jay Sussman, not Hal Abelson. They have morphed in my mind since they posed for that composite photo on the back of the SICP book :)
I have another suggestion: Hal Abelson gave a speech at Ars Digita in which he went the other way- that literary expression, when it's good, uses algorithmic/programming elements. This breaks down the barrier between speech and code in an interesting way, that is, not by arguing that code is speech, but in fact that speech is code.
Here is an excerpt from the abstract for this talk:
"I contend that at this moment in history we are at the beginning of an intellectual revolution based on the assimilation of computational ideas into our culture. We have been programming universal computers for about 50 years. The practice of computation arose from military, scientific, business, and accounting applications. Just as the early Egyptian surveyors probably thought of themselves as experts in the development and application of surveying instruments, we have developed a priestly cult of computer scientists. But, as I have pointed out: Computer Science is not a science, and its ultimate significance has little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think and in the way we express what we think."
You can stream the talk (realvideo format) here, or you can download it here.
Bryguy
ps- another thought- the difference between source code and machine code is that source code is specifically designed to be comprehensible to humans, hence it is expressive of an idea rather than pure instruction.