Sat, 09 Jul 2011
Freedom, continued
Okay, so the story continues: Joe Brockmeier has posted a rebuttal to Nina Paley's post that I commented on earlier today.
Basically, Joe says that Culture is not the same things as Software, and gives a lot of arguments as to why this would be true. But I can't agree with him. Let's see why.
His first argument is "One of these things is not like the other". As in,
But it's far more reasonable and sensible to discuss Perl scripts and software written in assembler embedded on a chip together, and the rights that they come with, than to try to talk about rights to modify sculpture and essays.
I don't see how one could combine a perl script with an embedded assembler program, except perhaps over a network, or by using exec()—two cases in which the FSF would consider that they are not even derivatives anymore, they are "at arm's length", and it would be legal to do something like this if one bit was released under the GPL while the other was not. At the same time, it's possible to engrave (part of) an essay into a statue, for example. Or make a technical apparatus which looks like a statue but which will play music if you come near it. Both would be valid cases of some artist combining two separate and (at first sight) distinct things into one work.
Sure, you could crowdsource sculpture, but I doubt it will have much practical application. (And certainly difficult over the Internet, but I digress...)
It's called RepRap, and it's very much possible over the Internet.
Joe moves on, with 'Unintended consequences of forkable prose'.
Take the GNU Manifesto, for example. If you could "fork" the manifesto, I could easily see variant versions modified to justify open source instead of free software.
This argument had been brought forward during the discussions which Debian had on the GFDL vote, and has been seriously debunked there. In short: the ability and right to fork someone's prose does not, in any way, give you the right to misrepresent them. While I believe it should be okay for someone to base a theoretical Open Source Manifesto on the GNU Manifesto, I do not believe it should be okay for them to still keep calling it the GNU Manifesto. It's not the same thing anymore, so that should be clear.
This is true within Free Software as well: if you fork, you give it a new name, so it becomes clear that you're not the original anymore.
Moreover, I doubt the kind of prose found in the GNU Manifesto is the same kind of prose that Nina would like to see in a free culture movement. Not because the GNU Manifesto is a bad piece of writing—it isn't—but because Free Culture likely focuses on other things than manifestos.
Next, we get "Solving a problem that doesn't exist"
The spark that fired off the GNU revolution was a legitimate problem — because of non-free code, a user was unable to make use of hardware they (or their university) legitimately owned.
(...)
While Paley and others may want the same freedoms to go with cultural works, it is not a real problem in the same sense.
Pardon ye me?
I am a musician. Not a very brilliant one, mind you, but I play the flute with much enthusiasm, and have done so in a number of places. If you've been to any debconf since 2007, surely you must've heard me play. Also, I've been singing in choirs since I was sixteen—which, I just realized, means I've now been singing for more than half my lifetime. Time flies, it must be said.
One of the orchestra that I've been playing in was an extended flute choir with a rather unusual instrumentarium: apart from 30-something flautists, the orchestra also had a piano and drummer, a number of guitar players, and a bass guitar. Such an unusual set of music means you have three options: you play original music, written specifically for your group; you play something written for a different set of instruments, without changing anything, and hope nobody notices that it doesn't actually sound very well; or you make modifications. You make a derivative work of the music, so you can actually play it. There, I've said the word.
This isn't just true for music; I've yet to see the first theatre performance that is true, word-for-word, to the original script.
Also, movies use music all the time. When they do, there are usually two options: either they have original pieces of music written specifically for their movie (as is the case for most Hollywood blockbusters), or they take a piece of existing music, and adapt it so it fits the events in the movie better. By, say, shortening it, so it doesn't run into the next scene. Or by repeating the refrain an extra time, so the words line up nicely with the action. Or by having a group of musicians record a version of that piece specifically for your movie, which is the same thing in everything except the speed—so that the feet of the actor walking on the big screen hit the ground in sync with the music. Or... well. You get the idea.
By claiming that artists have no need to modify and derive from others, the only thing Joe accomplishes is to show that he really, really, really doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Artists have a need to modify other artists' works all the time. The only difference with free software is that they either need to invoke the fair use clause, or need to pay big bucks to the original rightsholder. Sound familiar?
Joe finishes up with stating that despite all of that, Free Culture is still possible. And:
That doesn't mean that free culture is impossible. It simply means that different standards apply.
Exactly: different standards apply. And why? There is no good reason for that.
Because people make money from cultural works? Well, money is made from software, too, that has never been a good enough reason.
Because Culture is not functional? How many in the Free Software movement would even be willing to only be doing software all the time, and not ever do anything remotely related to Culture? None, I would say. Culture is just as functional as Software, it just serves different functions.
In the comments, Joe clarifies that he isn't against people preferring not to use the ND clause in the CC licenses they select, he's just against demanding that others do the same.
That argument would make sense if not for the fact that the FSF demands, mostly, that Software Should Be Free!!1!. By not complaining about the GNU Manifesto, but complaining about Paley's "Rantifesto", which basically complains about the lack of such an environment in the free culture movement, Joe just makes a fool of himself.
Anyway, 'nuff said.
On Software (and Cultural) Freedom
Nina Paley, author/actor/director/animatrist of the excellent sita sings the blues, blogs about the FSF's double standards when it comes to freedom. To the FSF, Software Should Be Free!!1!, and it is willing to go to great lengths to accomplish that. For example, the FSF will create dracionian requirements on their Hardware endorsement criteria, that will most likely render it unusable, just for the remote possibility that they might convert a single soul to their religion. They will add propaganda to their documentation, and slap on a license that makes it illegal for anyone to modify or remove that propaganda. They will claim to make an update to that license, just to make their friends happy, but then do not make any effort to finish the job.
Most of all, the FSF is led by a person who deserves our respect for jumpstarting a movement that has made all this free software even possible, but whose atypical behaviour might be interfering with his message these days.
I have stated before that I'm not a member of the FSF, and that 'I have my reasons'. In case you were wondering: the above are my reasons. I can't be a member of, or be supporting of, any organization that uses such double standards in anything.
In the case of Debian, it took us a long time to come to the conclusion that the GNU FDL is a non-free license. And though we came to that conclusion through other arguments than "Culture should be free, too" (specifically, the arguments boiled down to "if it's digital, it's software, and software should be free"), I have since come to the conclusion that there is nothing special about 'digital stuff' that should mean it should be more free than 'non-digital stuff'. If I hand you a piece of music on a sheet of paper, why should you not have the right to redistribute and/or modify that, while you should have the exact same right if I were to hand you the exact same paper on a digital medium? That makes no sense.
So, in short, I agree with you, Nina: there is no Free Culture movement, and that's a shame; and while it would be nice if the FSF were to take a lead role in guiding such a movement, I find it highly unlikely that they will. The FSF may claim they care about Freedom, that doesn't mean they do; they care about Software Freedom. And while that certainly was an issue thirty years ago, when the FSF was formed, it isn't so much anymore today.
There can only be one conclusion: the FSF is obsolete.
Mon, 19 Jul 2010
Monty at it again...
Apparently Michael Widenius isn't quite about to give up on his quest against Oracle.
The latest news is that he's appealing the EC decision. Wonder what the use of that is, since the merger seems pretty final already. I also don't think it's a very good cause, at any rate. After all, the worst that can happen is that MySQL will fork. Or that Oracle will pour some resources in it, and actually make it a database, rather than the POS toy it currently is. Or that it dies out, and that the world switches over to PostgreSQL or Firebird for Free Software database requirements. Wouldn't be a big loss, would it?
Give up already, Monty!
Sun, 20 Dec 2009
Good, not evil
There is a bit of a fluff online currently about the following clause in the "jsmin" code (whatever that is):
The software shall be used for good, not evil
This seems to have started when Google rejected a project based on that code due to its license being not free or open source according to their standards, and therefore not welcome anymore.
The arguments then quickly degenerated into things like 'when did google stop being against evil'. But those are all besides the point.
One of the most important properties of free and open source software is that anyone can use it for any purpose; there are no restrictions to using them. The DFSG (and hence, the OSD which was derived from the DFSG) encode this as follows:
No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
You may think "how is 'evil' a field of endeavor", but that is the wrong question. To "use software for evil" can mean any of a number of things, including "nuclear research", "weapons development", "abortion", or, heck "the cash register in a butchery shop", depending on the ethical and moral framework through which the person writing the license sees the world.
The ability to give someone a CD or DVD with a bunch of software on there, being able to tell them that they can just use this in any which way they see fit, is a very strong and important feature of the free and open source community. Every time someone comes up with a clause like the above, however, this ability is diluted somewhat; and if it is readily accepted within the greater free and open source movement, then eventually everyone interested in using a piece of software must first check whether they're not trying to use software that forbids someone's pet evil, and we lose one of the greatest strenghts that does exist for free software, but not for proprietary software.
The sad thing is, the jsmin author seems to agree. From a video/transcript on which he talks about his absurd license clause is the following quote:
Also about once a year, I get a letter from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company – I don't want to embarrass the company by saying their name, so I'll just say their initials – IBM…
[laughter]
…saying that they want to use something I wrote. Because I put this on everything I write, now. They want to use something that I wrote in something that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. So could I give them a special license for that? Of course. So I wrote back – this happened literally two weeks ago – "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."
Or, in other words, all you have to do if you want to use this software for evil is set up a second company, tell Douglas that this second company wants to sell software that uses his software to people who might use it for "evil", even though the first company won't, and you're in business. Because Douglas doesn't really oppose evildoers.
So the question is, why is that clause in there in the first place? There are only two possibilities; either Douglas didn't really think about those issues, in which case I hope he will one day see the light and remove the clause; or he did, and decided to go ahead and put that clause there anyway. And that would be evil.
Fri, 20 Mar 2009
TomTom
Tue, 03 Mar 2009
GFDL 1.3
Yeah, yeah, I may be living under a rock these days. Anyway, I just noticed that the GFDL v1.3 is out; it has been for four months or so.
There aren't many changes; apart from some minor wording changes that have little to no effect on the meaning of the license, there are two new sections: the first adds details on what happens when you violate the license (basically, it gets temporarily terminated, which can become permanent if you do not fix it in a reasonable timeframe or under some other circumstances); the second allows one to change the license from GFDL to CC-BY-SA under certain circumstances (where "certain circumstances" in practice basically means "you're wikipedia", although it isn't written as such).
And that's it. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing to follow up on the FDLv2 discussion drafts that were released about two-and-a-half years ago.
Me, I find that disappointing. When the initial discussion drafts were put out on the web, I was thrilled; I spent some time reading them and providing comments. However, nothing happened on those drafts beyond initially getting them out there. It would appear that today, the FSF has even managed to lose the comments that were made.
I guess they don't really care about the FDL as much as they do about the GPL.
Sun, 18 Dec 2005
Big Brother
I know why I voted Staes during the last elections. But now I'm reminded why, should I have forgotten.
Oh my.
Sat, 03 Sep 2005
Nutzwerk is a scam, and should be ashamed of themselves
If you're trying to open up the FFII's web pages at ffii.org, you might notice that for some reason this isn't possible. What's happened is that some German software company called "Nutzwerk" has been abusing loopholes in the German law system that allowed them to file no less than five distinct lawsuits about the very same thing so that the FFII, in the end, couldn't afford the costs anymore.
The claims were about some documentation that the FFII had put up on their website about their services. Apparently, as can be read in the google cache of a recent press release on FFII.org, Nutzwerk was used as an example of a successful SME based on software patents—but a very dubious one at that.
They'll probably try to sue me now, but I don't care. They deserve all the negative attention they can get.
Hint: www.ffii.de still seems to work. Oh well.
Update: this entry isn't entirely correct. Read this.
Sat, 21 May 2005
Software Patents in Europe: MEPs reply
Two days ago, I received a second reply to the mails I had been sending out to Belgian MEPs. The first one was from Bart Staes, who, being a representative of the Flemish Greens, reaffirmed that he, together with the other Greens in the European Parliament, opposed Software Patents. I knew that, of course (it's why I voted for him on the last elections), but I still thought it important to let him know he's not off base in this particular subject. You wouldn't want your MEPs to start thinking they're somehow wrong when they receive information from lobbyists from 'the other side', and no longer from us.
I thought I had received another reply from Dirk Sterkcx, but in looking through my mails, I found out that this was apparently not the case (or I already deleted it, though I don't think I did).
The reply I received on wednesday was from Anne Léger, an assistant to Philippe Busquin. It was a very short email:
Geachte Heer, Philippe Busquin dankt u voor uw mail mbt de patentproblematiek die hem toelaat een compleet beeld te krijgen van het gegeven om een gefundeerde positie in te nemen. Met vriendelijke groeten, [signed]
Which translates approximately to:
Dear Sir, Philippe Busquin thanks you for your mail regarding the patent issue which allows him to have a complete view on the situation in order to form a well-founded opinion. Regards, [signed]
Now, I'm happy about this; perhaps even more so than I was about the mail from Bart Staes. Judging by the email from Mr. Busquin's aide, it would appear that he's not yet formed his opinion; to know that the work I did to contact the Belgian MEPs—including the Walloon ones, whom I can never vote into parliament and whom I mailed in Dutch rather than French—could influence the opinion of MEPs, even if only one, made it all worthwhile.
If you're European and you haven't yet mailed your representatives regarding the Patent issue, it might be a good idea to do so. There is still time, if not much; and it doesn't have to take a long time. Just make sure you write a personal email, though, not a form letter used by possibly tens or hundreds of other people.
Mon, 09 May 2005
Mailed the Belgian MEPs again.
I've just mailed our Belgian MEPs on the Software Patents issue again. This isn't the first time I'm doing this -- last time was before the last europarl elections, though.
My mail was quite a bit diferent this time, as compared to the previous one. Based in part on one of my previous blog posts about this subject, I'm trying to convince the MEPs that they should vote against this directive, even if they support it, because I think (and I hope they do so with me) that if we do get a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, at all, it should be through a democratic process, rather than through people switching off other people's microphones so that they can claim consensus due to lack of opposition.
Let's see whether it has any effect. I sincerely hope so.
Some mail is welcome in /dev/null. Real mail, however, is welcome at my email address
|
|
|
|