under a license which says you may not create derivative works from it
(an action defined by a judge) or use the work for commercial
purposes.
The novel is not as easy to start as other Stross' books. (I have
read "Singularity Sky", "Iron Sunrise", and the "Family Trade", all of
which I consider `page turners'. Singularity Sky begins with the line
`The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the
cobblestones...'; it is about an `out of context problem', an
adventure story about what happens when a sigularity-blind government
tries to deal with Von Neumann replicators.)
As I said, I had troubles. Perhaps the beginning of Accelerando comes
from an earlier period in the writer's life. In any event, my
troubles went away. I could not set aside the middle and latter parts
of the book; either I got more interested in it or by the time he
wrote those section, Stross had learned to write more attractively.
(With interruptions, he wrote the book over the period 1999 - 2004.)
Regardless of the beginning, several of the ideas in the book are
wonderful and new to me.
One contemporary issue is the dropping cost of information
reduplication. `Accelerando' takes the notion of copying a step
further. What if you can inexpensively and safely copy people?
To quote Stross:
Do you get one vote for each warm body? Or one vote for each
sapient individual? What about distributed intelligences?
I had not thought of this question. What if Stross copies himself 60
million times, and each copy registers to vote, and no one else makes
copies of themselves?
(This book is an example of inexpensive copying, so inexpensive that I
did not consider it a cost at all: I did not have to obtain
`Accelerando' on paper, which is what economists call a `rivalrous'
good. The novel contains a straightforward extrapolation of the
lowering cost and integrity of copying...
(A `rivalrous' good is one in which your use `rivals' mine. Thus, we
both cannot wear the same shirt at the same time. If I consume paper,
you cannot consume that same paper. Non-rivalrous goods are those
which we can both have at no or little extra cost. Laws are an
example: my obeying a law does not prevent you from obeying it.
Likewise, the information content of a book is an example. Your
reading a book does not prevent me from reading it.)
Another question revolves around solar systems in which there is a
great deal of rapid networking:
"They've got a scarcity economy all right," says Pierre. "Bandwidth
is the limited resource, that and matter. This whole civilization
is tied together locally because if you move too far away, well, it
takes ages to catch up on the gossip.
Scarcity is felt to be even worse if the entities are electronic
rather than biological. That is because their thinking speeds may be
a million times faster than human. Then, in conversation with someone
100 light years away, instead of taking 200 years for each turn
around, the subjective time from a human point of view is 200 million
years. That duration is much longer than the time between the death
of the dinosaurs and the present.
Stross' concept, by the way, provides one answer for David Brin's
question in his paper
> Wikipedia has the right basic structure but > they need a rotating team of pro Guest > Editors to go through and fact-check and > then "lock" articles, or portions of > articles.
Yes. The Wikipedia is a trust-based organization. It needs to provide two features: an operation that readers believe; and, a way to ensure readers that what they receive what is offered.
Banks and insurance companies are well known as organizations that depend on trust. That is because they offer promises of future delivery, not anything that can be checked in the here and now.
Encyclopedias are also based on trust, but that may not be so apparent. Encyclopedias offer articles that can be checked in the here and now. However, as a practical matter, no one is able to check them all. You can only check a few. To be useful, you need to trust that the unchecked articles are good enough.
This means that you must have some way of learning the reputations of the people who create the encyclopedia. Knowing this, you can expect that the quality that applies to articles you checked applies to all of them. Secondly, you must be sure that you get what you intend.
In the old days, the trust conveying people in the Encyclopedia Britannica organization published a set of books. You depended on the reputation of the company.
If an article was within the set, and you believed that the books came from the right people, then you trusted what was printed.
In order to make sure that someone did not pretend to be other than who they were, countries developed laws of fraud and trade mark and the means of policing those laws.
Otherwise, to ensure they got a trustworthy copy or promise, people had to depend on family, friends, clan, crooks, or bribed officials. Only the rich could afford such actions; and the rich did not make up much of a market.
In modern times, as in the old days, trust conveying people establish organizations with defined mechanisms for adding new people. This way, organizations can develop a reputation for trustworthiness. In addition, modern information-providing organizations publish `md5 sums' or their equivalents to ensure that what they offer is what you get.
I have no problem with the government sponsoring free software
development, but if they do so, they should use a license that allows
anyone and everyone to benefit from the software.
There is an old saying, "your freedom to swing your fist stops at the
end of my nose". The freedom "to swing your fist" is a `freedom to';
freedom from being hit is a `freedom from'.
Let's use these notions to compare a modified BSD license with the GNU
General Public License.
Alice pays taxes that enable Bob to write software under the modified
BSD license.
Charles takes that code, fixes a bug in it, and publishes the result.
He then has the legal freedom to prevent Alice, Bob, Doris, and Edward
from using that bug fix.
Alice, the taxpayer, may fail to benefit from all the programming.
Alternatively, Alice pays her taxes to support George to write
software under the GNU General Public License. Fred takes that code
and fixes a bug. After publishing his work, Fred may not prevent
anyone from using the bug fix. Alice, Bob, Charles, Doris, Edward and
George are legally free from being harmed.
Alice, the tax payer, benefits.
A modified BSD license is a `freedom to' license. Under it, a bully
may both legally swing his fist and also legally punch you. You may
feel this is unethical and immoral, but under the license, the bully
has the legal right to do so: specifically, under a modified BSD
license any one may take your code, improve it, publish it, and then
prevent you and others' from using an
improvement to your own
code. He or she may not, just as a bully may decide not to punch you.
But legally he or she has the freedom to do so.
On the other hand, the GNU General Public License is a `freedom from'
license. The bully may swing his fist, but he must stop before he
hits your nose. Under GNU General Public License, you are protected
against someone who takes your code, improves it, publishes it, and
then tries to prevent you from using the improvement to your own code.
The GNU GPL vaccinates you against being harmed.
Slashdot Mirror
Charles Stross has released a novel called "Accelerando",
http://www.accelerando.org/
under a license which says you may not create derivative works from it (an action defined by a judge) or use the work for commercial purposes.
The novel is not as easy to start as other Stross' books. (I have read "Singularity Sky", "Iron Sunrise", and the "Family Trade", all of which I consider `page turners'. Singularity Sky begins with the line `The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones ...'; it is about an `out of context problem', an
adventure story about what happens when a sigularity-blind government
tries to deal with Von Neumann replicators.)
As I said, I had troubles. Perhaps the beginning of Accelerando comes from an earlier period in the writer's life. In any event, my troubles went away. I could not set aside the middle and latter parts of the book; either I got more interested in it or by the time he wrote those section, Stross had learned to write more attractively. (With interruptions, he wrote the book over the period 1999 - 2004.)
Regardless of the beginning, several of the ideas in the book are wonderful and new to me.
One contemporary issue is the dropping cost of information reduplication. `Accelerando' takes the notion of copying a step further. What if you can inexpensively and safely copy people?
To quote Stross:
I had not thought of this question. What if Stross copies himself 60 million times, and each copy registers to vote, and no one else makes copies of themselves?
(This book is an example of inexpensive copying, so inexpensive that I did not consider it a cost at all: I did not have to obtain `Accelerando' on paper, which is what economists call a `rivalrous' good. The novel contains a straightforward extrapolation of the lowering cost and integrity of copying...
(A `rivalrous' good is one in which your use `rivals' mine. Thus, we both cannot wear the same shirt at the same time. If I consume paper, you cannot consume that same paper. Non-rivalrous goods are those which we can both have at no or little extra cost. Laws are an example: my obeying a law does not prevent you from obeying it. Likewise, the information content of a book is an example. Your reading a book does not prevent me from reading it.)
Another question revolves around solar systems in which there is a great deal of rapid networking:
Scarcity is felt to be even worse if the entities are electronic rather than biological. That is because their thinking speeds may be a million times faster than human. Then, in conversation with someone 100 light years away, instead of taking 200 years for each turn around, the subjective time from a human point of view is 200 million years. That duration is much longer than the time between the death of the dinosaurs and the present.
Stross' concept, by the way, provides one answer for David Brin's question in his paper
The `Great Silence': The Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Life http://skew.ot.com/three/random/silence.html
which, as it says, was written
Suppose every civilization that could communicate be
> Wikipedia has the right basic structure but
> they need a rotating team of pro Guest
> Editors to go through and fact-check and
> then "lock" articles, or portions of
> articles.
Yes. The Wikipedia is a trust-based
organization. It needs to provide two features:
an operation that readers believe; and, a way to
ensure readers that what they receive what is
offered.
Banks and insurance companies are well known as
organizations that depend on trust. That is
because they offer promises of future delivery,
not anything that can be checked in the here and
now.
Encyclopedias are also based on trust, but that
may not be so apparent. Encyclopedias offer
articles that can be checked in the here and
now. However, as a practical matter, no one is
able to check them all. You can only check a
few. To be useful, you need to trust that the
unchecked articles are good enough.
This means that you must have some way of
learning the reputations of the people who
create the encyclopedia. Knowing this, you can
expect that the quality that applies to articles
you checked applies to all of them. Secondly,
you must be sure that you get what you intend.
In the old days, the trust conveying people in
the Encyclopedia Britannica organization
published a set of books. You depended on the
reputation of the company.
If an article was within the set, and you
believed that the books came from the right
people, then you trusted what was printed.
In order to make sure that someone did not
pretend to be other than who they were,
countries developed laws of fraud and trade mark
and the means of policing those laws.
Otherwise, to ensure they got a trustworthy copy
or promise, people had to depend on family,
friends, clan, crooks, or bribed officials.
Only the rich could afford such actions; and the
rich did not make up much of a market.
In modern times, as in the old days, trust
conveying people establish organizations with
defined mechanisms for adding new people. This
way, organizations can develop a reputation for
trustworthiness. In addition, modern
information-providing organizations publish `md5
sums' or their equivalents to ensure that what
they offer is what you get.
There is an old saying, "your freedom to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose". The freedom "to swing your fist" is a `freedom to'; freedom from being hit is a `freedom from'.
Let's use these notions to compare a modified BSD license with the GNU General Public License.
Alice pays taxes that enable Bob to write software under the modified BSD license.
Charles takes that code, fixes a bug in it, and publishes the result. He then has the legal freedom to prevent Alice, Bob, Doris, and Edward from using that bug fix.
Alice, the taxpayer, may fail to benefit from all the programming.
Alternatively, Alice pays her taxes to support George to write software under the GNU General Public License. Fred takes that code and fixes a bug. After publishing his work, Fred may not prevent anyone from using the bug fix. Alice, Bob, Charles, Doris, Edward and George are legally free from being harmed.
Alice, the tax payer, benefits.
A modified BSD license is a `freedom to' license. Under it, a bully may both legally swing his fist and also legally punch you. You may feel this is unethical and immoral, but under the license, the bully has the legal right to do so: specifically, under a modified BSD license any one may take your code, improve it, publish it, and then prevent you and others' from using an improvement to your own code. He or she may not, just as a bully may decide not to punch you. But legally he or she has the freedom to do so.
On the other hand, the GNU General Public License is a `freedom from' license. The bully may swing his fist, but he must stop before he hits your nose. Under GNU General Public License, you are protected against someone who takes your code, improves it, publishes it, and then tries to prevent you from using the improvement to your own code. The GNU GPL vaccinates you against being harmed.