[FM Discuss] updated IBD

[a.l.e]

hi

i feel uncomfortable in saying what RMS would think...

still, i guess that with a cultural GPL, RMS would have tried to make 
sure that the work based on his work would be available to him as a base 
for creating new works.

he would probably be more than happy, if other people started monetizing 
his work, while letting him use their work.
or at least he wouldn't have spent a word on who should be the first to 
monetarily profit from a specific work.

(just for your information: lot of companies are making lot of money by 
using free software and they don't give back absolutely nothing! think 
of all the telcos with linux/apache/python/php/mysql/email servers! very 
few companies, mostly the big ones, give back a little bit...)

as you are finding out, the GPL and BSD licenses have been built by and 
for people who are not fighting for paying their bills... it's probably 
partially due to the fact that programmers don't fear to work for those 
people who have the money; on the other hand, artists want to stay pure. 
other factors are certainly also involved...

it's an open question if FM can build on the same model.
(until now, it seems to be working well enough...)

finally, if you want to go after unethical uses of your work, you have 
to use a license that forbids them (and have the power (=money) to 
enforce it!): just shouting at unethical people that they should stop, 
won't probably help that much. they're by definition resistant to ethics!

the GPL used by FM -- while not being in my eyes the best license for 
content -- does it right and does not forbid unethical uses.

ciao
a.l.e

> Hi Camille,
>> rms has spilled much ink and sweatied up his brow to make it clear
>> that he is a Free Software advocate but not a supporter of Free Culture
> I'm not speaking on his behalf :-)
>
>> We can't
>> conflate GPL software with all of Free Software and we can't conflate
>> Free Culture with Free Software. Lots of oranges and apples and pears
> True, although Free Culture licensing clearly descends from Free
> Software licensing.
>
>> I understand the importance of keeping Free software Free, but I don't
>> hold as one of the motivations for that to be the fear of being "ripped
>> off".
> That's the difference between copyleft and more permissive licenses
> (e.g. BSD-style). If there were no concerns about exploitation, the GPL
> would not have been necessary. RMS's concern may have been expressed in
> terms of continued access to source code, rather than sustainable models
> for independent creators, since he was working at MIT at the time.
>
>> I think what you're calling "ripping off" is what most
>> people call "monetizing"
> Some might call it that; I might call it unethical or counter-productive
> monetizing. In RMS terms, it was the monetizing of code that restricted
> his access to improved source code.
>
> I believe that if there's money to be made, the authors should be the
> first to get the benefit of that. Otherwise we create a perverse
> incentive to freeload on the work of others, rather than a positive
> incentive to contribute.
>
> One of my least favourite metaphors in corporate press releases is
> 'harness the power of the open source community', since it reminds me of
> a feudal yoke:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_pole
>
>> and the GPL never states that you can't make
>> money off of Free software.
> Indeed, many cloud software companies are taking advantage of that,
> without contributing back their code improvements. That's why the AGPL
> was introduced:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License
>
>> Also, making free software non-free is a violation of a license and
>> people who do that can be penalized.
> That's a civil matter, so in practice you have to be able to afford a
> team of lawyers.
>
> Also you have to be able to catch the person doing the infringing, which
> is non-trivial for cultural works since we have a huge darknet populated
> with freeloaders. Look at http://sourceforge.net/top/ and you will see
> hundreds of millions of downloads of P2P clients.
>
>> That is what Free Software
>> Conservancy and other organizations like it do.
> In theory, but see my answer above.
>
>> I still don't understand exactly what you are concerned about and/or
>> proposing here....
> In a nutshell, I don't think we can afford to be complacent about
> unethical monetizing. I expect the FM/Booktype model to be disruptive to
> the publishing industry. If that happens, we will need an economic and
> social model which will enable us to keep on writing, free from yokes.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Daniel
>
>
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