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

[Radosław Nadstawny]

On Sat, 15 May 2010 13:36:09 +0200
Alexandre Leray <newsletters at alexandreleray.com> wrote:

> 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.

I'd disagree. Terms like "human readable" and "machine readable" are
inventions of lawyers and have little or no true meaning. Every program
can be read and understood by human even in it's binary form. It just
requires some skills. Sure, binary form is harder to comprehend than
source code, but not impossible. Saying that computer program in binary
form is not human readable is like saying that books in Chinese are not
human readable, and because of this you can't compare them to books in
English.

> 
> Best,
> 
> Alexandre Leray
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