[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Alexandre Leray]

Hi Boris,

Le 14/05/10 17:29, Boris Turovskiy a écrit :
> Here comes the first point, the non-commercial clause - good that you 
> pointed it out for me. The Pirate ideas usually make a clear 
> distinction between "commercial" and "non-commercial", with most of 
> our positions focusing on freedoms in the non-commercial area. 
> However, it is explicitly stated in the FSF's description of 
> "essential freedoms" that there should not be a difference between 
> commercial and non-commercial use and distribution. And if we applied 
> their position to other works, the hugely popular (among pirates, too) 
> CC-BY-NC license would be considered just as "bad" or "unfree" as a 
> "all rights reserved" license.
The term commercial is very blurry to me; It would be necessary to first 
distinguish what is commercial and what isn't. For instance is it 
commercial to charge money for production cost only, let say in the case 
of a non-profit print publication?
> Not access itself but the possibility of sharing (granting access to 
> others) or modifying of something I already have access to. If a 
> writer writes a book and locks it in their drawer, we don't arrive at 
> their door saying "Show us the book, you don't have the rights to 
> restrict our access to it!"; neither can we force a band to put their 
> releases online in uncompressed form if they decide to only release 
> them in mp3. In the same way, if a software developer writes a program 
> and releases only the compiled version, not the code, it's his right. 
> After all, we require that there be a right of sharing, not an 
> obligation to do so.
>
A writer who writes a book and put it straight in his/her drawer isn't 
making anything public. So there is no reason to knock his/her door. But 
if s/he publishes it, then it gives rights to the public (imagine 
someone talking to you, and you can't reply him... what an awful 
situation!). Also you can not compare a book and a computer program; the 
first is human readable whereas the second in it's binary form isn't.

Best,

Alexandre Leray