Ricardo Andere de Mello gandhi@quilombodigital.org schrieb am 21.04.04 18:51:37:
On Wednesday 21 April 2004 14:32, Axel Schulz wrote:
And since that time I could not answering the question to myself why software should not be owned, like Stallman suggested. By the way, who is the owner? I think it can be either the engineer or the company (the client) who pays the engineer. Or?
The owner is the society, that educated the enginneer, that gave him oportunity, that gave his job and life. The inventor has always a great DEBT to the society, because he had access to the information, but a lot of others didn't. Guys, do you have access to the internet and LOTS of information, but in my country 50% are below the poor line. Don't you think you have a big debt? How can you pay all the information you have? Giving it back!
"The owner is the society" I consider this argument and I totally disagree. I would put it this way: society has to take advantage of the ownership. And I am not talking about money.
Consider this: If I programmed something which is extremely useful I would like to claim the ownership in that program. But I am that smart, that I do not sell it. Instead, I give it away for free and undr the GPL. One month later the MIT calls and offers me a professorship - I am at the aim of all my dreams. If I would not be able to claim ownership in that program, such a career would be impossible.
A great debt does not waive the right to ownership. I can payback my debt in many ways. I can claim ownership without restricting other people to use my program. And this is would should your argument give the force, right? This is not a good justification in the matrial world. Letting people drive with my vehicle I constructed does not fit to my intended goal in first place. But I can give awy the manual how to build that vehicle? I can claim that I am the owner.
Of course, software is different. Here I can give away or let drive other people my vehicle and give away the manual without any harm.
You guys are working on free software because this vehicle is useful. To protect it from restriction you publish it under a license which basically prohibits restrictions (GPL). This needs ownership.
The argument that no-ownership is the golden way is mistaken, as I would say. Because it disallows people to use their freedom by restricting the usage of the result of their labor.
And:
I have to say that I disagree with Stallman at this point. Society needs good software (more than ever). And individuals should be allowed to claim rights in their products - this should be their freedom, too. This is from my point of view the main ethical conflict. It is a question of justice, freedom, and valid claims.
GNU-Linux is a "good software" and nobody owns it. It's a "proof-of-concept" that stallman is right and you are wrong. ;-)
Sure, is Linux a good software ;-))
BUT: ;-))) Isn't Linus Torvalds the owner? He decided to publish the software under the GPL. From than on the software was available for everybody, and everybody has to agree to the terms of the license. This freedom is ensured because of the original ownership. I agree that it sounds very strange to use the word "ownership" here since Linux is labeld to be free.
What Linus could probably do is taking the newest version of the Kernel and publish it under a new license. From that moment on we would have still the "free" GPL'ed Linux and Linus can use his Linux for commercial purposes. Since he is the owner, he would be the only one who would be allowed to publish Linux under a different License.
Is that really tru what I say here. It think it fits to the GPL.
Of course, Linus would be stupis, since people would continue to develop the GPL'ed Linux.
Here again a refer to freedom. Freedom is what Stallman wants. But then he has also respect autonomy and the power to change my will and to practice my freedom in the way I want to practice it.
Of course, this presuposes that an social institution like ownership exists. But that is beyond any question and had been justified by many philosophers and legal writers.
What Stallman is trying to defend is non-ownership. But this makes people un-free. The concept of freedom has in social philosophy two meanings: (1) to be free from something (negative freedom) and (2) free to do something (positive freedom). Basically, we are un-free when our wants are denied their satisfaction.
Any lawyer or judge will teach you that freedom only exists with a lot of restrictions. Freedom IS NOT what you read at the dictionary.
I see you point. But before I can talk about restrictions I need a concept of freedom I can talk about, right? I do not need a lawyer to teach me that my freedom is restricted. My girlfriend or my professor does an exellent job in this.
What matters to me that I can construcht a concept of freedom. You have to admit that positive and negative freedoms mean totally differemt thinks and that they capture different entities of life. Herein is the usefulness of Ethics - I do not have to listen to the lawyers !!! ;-))))))
I would argue that freedom has to be ensured; and that's why the individual freedom to ownership in software cannot be abolished. The claim for the abolition of ownership in software, as I would say, too weak.
Hum... I will give you an exagerated example, but it is good to think about the problem. Imagine if when you arrest a killer he says "oh, you can't arrest me! I have freedom to do what I want!". See, society can create limits if decides that an action is prejudicial (the word is correct?) to it.
The was before he killed a ordinary person (very idealized, of course). He evidently misused his freedom. He was aware of what could happen to him before he killed. You have a point, society invents the rules. Sure. But these rules are based on morality. We are also able to punish this killer without any legal law. The father of the victim would do the job.
The problem is that we have to define the rules. And that is why I am hostile to Stallman's idea that software should have owners. It is a propostion of a new rule, to use your idea, and I am willing to discuss it ;-))
Proprietary Software can cost lives, it's just like patents on medicines. Do you know a company finished genoma project three years earlier and sell the genoma during these three years? Can you imagine how many medicines would be invented in these three years, and how many lifes vanished just because a company's ambition?
No, I didn't. But I am aware of the philosophical debates about IPRs in Medicine. The expression there is "the tragedy of the anti-commons". There they talk about the HIV resarch and show that IPRs will kill, i a certain way, people.
But these are patents. The world needs probably patents in many industries. I do not question patents as such but the applicabilty to certain areas (software, medicine, as you said)
I do not know if ownership in software has something to do with the "cost of lives". The principle of the "properitarian software" should be able to be mirrored in GPL'ed software. GPL'ed software has legal owners. Does it cause the death of people?
Stallman is trying to say, just like creative commons, that INFORMATION should be free.
Ok! But information is different from software. Here we fight a battle on another field. I know that software is considered as text (like art) or as an instruction for a machine. I mean you can run Linux. You can read a book by XY but you cannot "run" the book. So the information in a software is more than just a "message". It is a construction. Stallman has to accept this and he also has to give people the freedom to restrict the access to this text. Otherwise he would change the world without making it better. Am I wrong?
Maybe you are on the right track, and I'm on the wrong, but I really think this way. The fact is people that don't donate money will never understand this, because they are only worried about their noses. 8-P
This sounds quite pessimistic. I am more otimistic. I think that free software and free arts will make their way. Donations, in these fields, will become less important because the markets will restruture themselves. What one has to worry about is the the growing gap between poor and rich - not only in the world, even inside industrial countries, and here I share your pessimism.
best regards, Axel
I reply to this specific message, but I've seen the same "mistake" in other messages of yours.
Consider this: If I programmed something which is extremely useful I would like to claim the ownership in that program. But I am that smart, that I do not sell it. Instead, I give it away for free and undr the GPL.
Then, you claim authorship, not ownership. In "why software should not have owners" the strong term "owner" refers to people who deny the rights on the software (the four freedoms, but it's more a general discussion than that).
So yes, we all agree you are granted authorship, what we disagree with is exclusive and strict ownership. If you are the owner of your work, it means you are also the owner of _my_ copy of your work. (Here "copy" means "instance" or "specimen").
Another misunderstanding in your posts is about the "food" comparison made by Rui Miguel Seabra. He bases his example on the hipotesis that food can be replicated at no cost. Sure physical food that can't be replicated has owners, since taking it away from them would leave them without their "copy". Please re-read his message with this in mind (the replicator, in the whole message). Then your message is based on wrong assumptions (and it's not bad, without the replicator hipotesis).
What Linus could probably do is taking the newest version of the Kernel and publish it under a new license.
No. He's not the only copyright holder. He can relicense his own work, which is a tiny fraction of it all nowadays. But this is a detail.
[I didn't read it all, yet, just wanted to clarify this misunderstanding about ownership and authorship]
/alessandro
On Wednesday 21 April 2004 21:21, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
So yes, we all agree you are granted authorship, what we disagree with is exclusive and strict ownership. If you are the owner of your work, it means you are also the owner of _my_ copy of your work. (Here "copy" means "instance" or "specimen").
err... I not agree with authorship. ;-)
I really think free-software should be descompromised, in an earlier email I told about donation. When you do a donation from your heart, you don't have to tell anyone you did it.
I have seen a lot of vain fights in the community and this is getting more common. Some people are "false" and give forced smiles just to have a good image at the community.
You must be brave to be anonymous.
[]s, gandhi
On Wednesday 21 April 2004 20:56, you wrote:
"The owner is the society" I consider this argument and I totally disagree. I would put it this way: society has to take advantage of the ownership. And I am not talking about money.
ok, people normally disagree with me. ;-)
Consider this: If I programmed something which is extremely useful I would like to claim the ownership in that program. But I am that smart, that I do not sell it. Instead, I give it away for free and undr the GPL. One month later the MIT calls and offers me a professorship - I am at the aim of all my dreams. If I would not be able to claim ownership in that program, such a career would be impossible.
hum... I understand your point, but I think that: 1. in an open-source environment, with dozens of developers working at the same code, it is complicated to talk about ownership. 2. programming has changed. You will not have more "lone ranger" programmers, you will have collaborative efforts. 3. I know a lot of people that sells their image inside free-software communities. If you are a good programmer, work hard, and is a good person, EVERYBODY just knows, because it's a "community". I have at least one job proposal a week, and I don't claim any ownership over any code. People at the community just know, from my history, that I'm a good person, and based on my Friends (another important thing) they know who I am. There are some sites growing now specialized in friends networks. (try www.orkut.com)
You guys are working on free software because this vehicle is useful. To protect it from restriction you publish it under a license which basically prohibits restrictions (GPL). This needs ownership.
In a REAL free world GPL would not be necessary, so I don't think GPL represents necessarily free-software.
The argument that no-ownership is the golden way is mistaken, as I would say. Because it disallows people to use their freedom by restricting the usage of the result of their labor.
BUT: ;-))) Isn't Linus Torvalds the owner? He decided to publish the software under the GPL. From than on the software was available for everybody, and everybody has to agree to the terms of the license. This freedom is ensured because of the original ownership. I agree that it sounds very strange to use the word "ownership" here since Linux is labeld to be free.
Here again a refer to freedom. Freedom is what Stallman wants. But then he has also respect autonomy and the power to change my will and to practice my freedom in the way I want to practice it.
Of course, this presuposes that an social institution like ownership exists. But that is beyond any question and had been justified by many philosophers and legal writers.
What matters to me that I can construcht a concept of freedom. You have to admit that positive and negative freedoms mean totally differemt thinks and that they capture different entities of life. Herein is the usefulness of Ethics - I do not have to listen to the lawyers !!! ;-))))))
I agree on this.
The problem is that we have to define the rules. And that is why I am hostile to Stallman's idea that software should have owners. It is a propostion of a new rule, to use your idea, and I am willing to discuss it ;-))
If you pay att
I do not know if ownership in software has something to do with the "cost of lives". The principle of the "properitarian software" should be able to be mirrored in GPL'ed software. GPL'ed software has legal owners. Does it cause the death of people?
eventually yes, for negligence. one company can spend more time doing a totally new software to solve a specific problem just because it don't wanted to use a small GPL lib and be obligated to turn it's software GPL.
GPL is not a good thing, it's just a medicine, the disease is still there. People should know what to do.
Ok! But information is different from software. Here we fight a battle on another field. I know that software is considered as text (like art) or as an instruction for a machine. I mean you can run Linux. You can read a book by XY but you cannot "run" the book. So the information in a software is more than just a "message". It is a construction. Stallman has to accept this and he also has to give people the freedom to restrict the access to this text. Otherwise he would change the world without making it better. Am I wrong?
Software is product of the mind, is Information! You take some parts of information, process them in your brain, and then combine in a new form and exposes it as software. At the end, like lavoisier, nothing is invented, everything is transformed. Duchamp with his shit cans showed that everything can be art. I talked to Stallman sometimes I can guarantee you Stallman knows GPL is a free software "defense mechanism", not the main idea.
[]s, gandhi
On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 22:56 +0200, Axel Schulz wrote:
The owner is the society, that educated the enginneer, that gave him oportunity, that gave his job and life. The inventor has always a great DEBT to the society, because he had access to the information, but a lot of others didn't. Guys, do you have access to the internet and LOTS of information, but in my country 50% are below the poor line. Don't you think you have a big debt? How can you pay all the information you have? Giving it back!
"The owner is the society" I consider this argument and I totally disagree.
I totally disagree, as well. There is no ownership. :) However, the author could only create the work because there was a society that educated him, that inspired him.
Copyright is there so society can have access to the work. But it carries a temporary economic advantage over publishers that the author can use to make some money off of copies made of his work.
I would put it this way: society has to take advantage of the ownership.
Society can't take advantage from ownership by definition. If someone "owns" something, then it's not available for society. If you mean that society (and not the author) owns it, than it makes no sense since it has exactly all the effects of no ownership at all.
And I am not talking about money.
Consider this: If I programmed something which is extremely useful I would like to claim the ownership in that program. But I am that smart, that I do not sell it. Instead, I give it away for free and undr the GPL. One month later the MIT calls and offers me a professorship - I am at the aim of all my dreams. If I would not be able to claim ownership in that program, such a career would be impossible.
Ok, stop right here and think: what you're talking about is about knowing who the author is.
That is still not ownership.
If you create a program under a contract in Portugal (and in many countries it is the same), even though you are the author, the distribution rights belong to someone else.
In anglo-saxon countries you usually can waive copyright completely in favour of someone else (normally a publisher whom you make a contract with). You are still the author, but you have lost all rights to the work :)
A great debt does not waive the right to ownership. (...) I can claim that I am the owner.
Again: AUTHOR, not owner.
You guys are working on free software because this vehicle is useful. To protect it from restriction you publish it under a license which basically prohibits restrictions (GPL). This needs ownership.
No. Copyright, _which_is_not_a_property_right_ even though many want to say it is, recognizes authors, and not owners.
Sure, is Linux a good software ;-)) BUT: ;-))) Isn't Linus Torvalds the owner?
No, he is one of many kernel hackers. His contribution are now a distinct minotity in terms of code.
He decided to publish the software under the GPL. From than on the software was available for everybody, and everybody has to agree to the terms of the license.
If they want to REDISTRIBUTE copies or improved versions.
This freedom is ensured because of the original ownership.
Yes and no.
No because it is not ownership. Yes since Linus chose the GNU GPL, so all derivate works had to be published under the GNU GPL.
I agree that it sounds very strange to use the word "ownership" here since Linux is labeld to be free.
It is strange because we're talking about a government granted artificial monopoly right. It is you who insist on ownership.
What Linus could probably do is taking the newest version of the Kernel and publish it under a new license. From that moment on we would have still the "free" GPL'ed Linux
No he can't, unless all contributors agree or waive their rights in favour of someone who does.
and Linus can use his Linux for commercial purposes.
Everyone can use, and some do, Linux for commercial purposes. Most of them use also more than the kernel, so what is usually used are variants of the GNU system coupled with the kernel called Linux, initially developped by Linus Torvalds, hence GNU/Linux.
What you meant was "for **proprietary** purposes".
I think you should read: Some Confusing or Loaded Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
for a more detailed explanation.
Here again a refer to freedom. Freedom is what Stallman wants. But then he has also respect autonomy and the power to change
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
my will and to practice my freedom in the way I want to practice it.
^^^^^^^
You're almost there. Only you mixed the word "freedom" when you're talking about "power" and "your will". That's no longer a freedom you're exercing but your power over everyone else. And you're using it in an irresponsible way: restricting freedoms everyone should have.
Of course, this presuposes that an social institution like ownership exists. But that is beyond any question and had been justified by many philosophers and legal writers.
Which ones? I'd say by no philosopher and by some legal writers, but I'd seem like being too sure of myself. However, you cold prove me wrong...
The was before he killed a ordinary person (very idealized, of course). He evidently misused his freedom. He was aware of what could happen to him before he killed.
That was before he restricted freedoms from an ordinary person (very idealized, of course). He evidently misused his power. He was aware of what could happen to him before he did that.
This sounds quite pessimistic. I am more otimistic. I think that free software and free arts will make their way. Donations, in these fields, will become less important because the markets will restruture themselves.
I wonder how many donations a successfull company such as Red Hat really receives.
What one has to worry about is the the growing gap between poor and rich
- not only in the world, even inside industrial countries, and here I
share your pessimism.
Copyright by default restricts freedoms from people. By default you have to be rich enough to have access to the work.
The digital world allows copies at almost zero price, so why do you defend a system that creates artificial price (ownership)?
Rui