If I'm not mistaken there are two different meanings of the word expression being used here. One is attributable to all code, the other is not for a judge to decide.
There are people who 'understand' C code and people who don't. The difference? A person who can read C can tell what any arbitrarily small fragment of well-formed code 'means'. The code DOES mean something, else what could the person be understanding. Most C code is a list of imperatives, such as "Put the value of 2 in the memory address symbolised byt the letter 'x'." There's a reason why this is called a command, or an instruction. By writing the code we are communicating our wishes. If the receiver (computer or human) doesn't understand the language then nothing will be communicated to them.
I think this is an unambiguous example of how code can have a meaning, and thus express that meaning.
The other use of the word 'expression' is to indicate the existence of some non-literal 'artistic' meaning that is being expressed. I think that DeCSS probably has very little artistic merit, but then neither do the majoritory of of movies I've seen, or the majoritory of newspaper articles, or the majoritory of modern art as far as I'm concerned.
I will not, however, rule that modern art is expressionless just because I don't understand what it is trying to express. I think that this would be just as ridiculous as ruling that FORTRAN expresses nothing (in the first sense of express) just because I don't understand it. C and FORTRAN and Welsh and Swahili all mean something to someone. Therefore I cannot rule out the possibility that they might have 'artistic merit' to someone either. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate DeCSS in all its glory.
The fact is that you will not find a description of the artistic merit of C in any manual. Nor will you appreciate the full meaning of Welsh poetry by looking up all the words in an English-Welsh dictionary. But someone sees it. The two meamnings of 'expression' are different but inextricably linked. You can't admit the one and rule out the possibility of other. C is a fully fledged, expressive, meaningful language, used frequently in communication between people and computers. Noone can prove that it cannot be 'artistically expressive', no judge can rule that it isn't.
They not only make the best games (well, game) but they have bulletin boards dedicated to these sorts of questions.
Who could be better to ask about the games industry than Peter Molyneux?
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I guess this confirms that 'Nothing is ever trully for free' applies to 'Free as in Speech' as well as 'free as in beer.'
If I'm not mistaken there are two different meanings of the word expression being used here. One is attributable to all code, the other is not for a judge to decide.
There are people who 'understand' C code and people who don't. The difference? A person who can read C can tell what any arbitrarily small fragment of well-formed code 'means'. The code DOES mean something, else what could the person be understanding. Most C code is a list of imperatives, such as "Put the value of 2 in the memory address symbolised byt the letter 'x'." There's a reason why this is called a command, or an instruction. By writing the code we are communicating our wishes. If the receiver (computer or human) doesn't understand the language then nothing will be communicated to them.
I think this is an unambiguous example of how code can have a meaning, and thus express that meaning.
The other use of the word 'expression' is to indicate the existence of some non-literal 'artistic' meaning that is being expressed. I think that DeCSS probably has very little artistic merit, but then neither do the majoritory of of movies I've seen, or the majoritory of newspaper articles, or the majoritory of modern art as far as I'm concerned.
I will not, however, rule that modern art is expressionless just because I don't understand what it is trying to express. I think that this would be just as ridiculous as ruling that FORTRAN expresses nothing (in the first sense of express) just because I don't understand it. C and FORTRAN and Welsh and Swahili all mean something to someone. Therefore I cannot rule out the possibility that they might have 'artistic merit' to someone either. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate DeCSS in all its glory.
The fact is that you will not find a description of the artistic merit of C in any manual. Nor will you appreciate the full meaning of Welsh poetry by looking up all the words in an English-Welsh dictionary. But someone sees it. The two meamnings of 'expression' are different but inextricably linked. You can't admit the one and rule out the possibility of other. C is a fully fledged, expressive, meaningful language, used frequently in communication between people and computers. Noone can prove that it cannot be 'artistically expressive', no judge can rule that it isn't.
They not only make the best games (well, game) but they have bulletin boards dedicated to these sorts of questions. Who could be better to ask about the games industry than Peter Molyneux?