[FM Discuss] Wordpress stuff

[Simon Yuill]

Hi Seth,

I appreciate your points about accessibility and not being 
'religious', and agree with them to some extent, however, 
I would argue that the issue with the iTunes store in 
relation to 'libre' services is that you can only access 
it through the non-free iTunes software, so regardless of 
what licence you distribute your content under, it still 
places restrictions on how you access it. iTunes store may 
be 'free' in terms of what you put in but it is not 'free' 
(as in libre) in terms of how you can get it out at the 
other end. For this reason I would argue that it is not 
appropriate to encourage its use in a project dedicated to 
encouraging FLOSS uptake. I would argue that for this 
reason that to promote iTunes usage does indeed bend the 
principles of FLOSS quite considerably.

There is an article here on why the French newspaper 
Liberation has chosen Miro over iTunes for its podcasts:

http://pculture.org/devblogs/teammiro/2008/01/19/french-newspaper-to-recommend-miro/

One point Liberation make in the article is that they felt 
using iTunes for distribution made their content less 
accessible.

I would agree that there needs to be a balance between 
purity of principle and accessibility, but I don't think 
we would compromise on accessibility if we give preference 
to encouraging services that are properly FLOSS or closer 
to FLOSS in how they operate.

best wishes
Si

On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 12:25:00 -0800
  "Seth Woodworth" <seth at isforinsects.com> wrote:
>I'm not a regular contributor to FM, but I disagree.
>
>One: iTunes is opening it's DRM considerably as of late, 
>and offering higher
>quality and non-drm songs.
>Two: iTines contains content from many of the open 
>lecture series from MIT
>Harvard etc that are all open content and CC licensed. 
> This material is for
>free, and is extensive.  So FM would be in good company.
>Three: Doesn't it make sense to try to preach to the 
>people in the iTunes
>crowd?  Attempt to be a voice of reason and explain 
>positions to people who
>might not otherwise hear them?
>
>All of my arguments assume one can publish with iTunes 
>non-exclusively.  But
>I think that distribution with iTunes, Podiobooks (CC 
>audiobooks), or any
>organization that will carry FM content.
>
>I feel/think that one of the purposes is to document 
>FLOSS projects to break
>down some of these religious disagreements between free 
>and non-free
>systems.  Distribution through iTunes would reach a very 
>large audience with
>little or no bending of morals or principles.
>
>On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 9:21 AM, adam hyde 
><adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:
>
>> hi,
>>
>> I agree with you Simon - FM is for FLOSS and if we cross 
>>into services
>> then these should be free services (but what exactly is 
>>the equivalent
>> of 'libre' when it comes to services is a tricky issue 
>>in itself).
>>
>> Mr Snow, the material you have written looks fantastic. 
>>However I think
>> we need to leave the iTunes material out of the FM 
>>repository. I
>> understand you are writing these under commission for 
>>Tactical
>> Technology Collective - how adamant are they that iTunes 
>>store is
>> documented? I am sure we can find another ('libre') 
>>solution...
>>
>>
>> adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 2008-03-02 at 15:36 +0000, Simon Yuill wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I'm just following up on a point in Mr Snow's last 
>>mail:
>> >
>> > > i have just been looking into adding ones podcast to 
>>the itunes store
>> >
>> > I wonder is it really appropriate that we should be
>> > including tutorials that encourage use of non-FLOSS
>> > services such as the iTunes store?
>> >
>> > I appreciate FM is taking a 'broad church' approach to
>> > encouraging FLOSS usage, but to me something like this 
>>is
>> > maybe crossing a line that we shouldn't. I am asking
>> > partly as it raises the question of how (or if) we are
>> > setting our own boundaries for what is appropriate to
>> > include?
>> >
>> > That's not intended as a criticism of Mr Snow and what
>> > looks like an excellent tutorial overall, but I am
>> > interested to know what people think ....
>> >
>> > best wishes
>> > Si
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Discuss mailing list
>> > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>> > 
>>http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>> --
>> Adam Hyde
>> FLOSS Manuals
>>
>> http://www.flossmanuals.net
>>
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