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

[Brian McNeil [Wikinewsie]]

Edison,

You're missing Richard's multiple points, and why free software is so
important. And, you seem to be misunderstanding what I see as the whole
point of the Pirate Party, and the vague goals it seems to have set
itself. [I say this as a non-member, but someone with a good memory of
the media's "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign. The guys from TPB
wore those T-shirts in court, but they're too young to remember the
virst video on MTV, the record industry screaming for cassette tapes to
be outlawed, and the repeated reduction in the rights of the
individual.]

My reply is lengthy, but threaded inline as is customary...

On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 10:12 +1200, Edison Carter wrote:
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Richard Stallman <rms at gnu.org> wrote:
> > CC-BY is a free noncopyleft license.
> > CC-BY-SA is a free copyleft license.
> 
> and CC-BY-NC is a non-free licence.
> 
> I'm not sure what the official Pirate position on this is though,
> since generally pirates support copyright as an 'industrial
> regulation'. What we're asking for is that all works effectively
> become CC-BY-NC as the least-permissive default. So why do Pirates
> favour Free software and not just settle for 'gratis' proprietary
> software? Or am I mistaken and most pirates don't really care about
> free software?

What is Copyright? You don't really seem to be coming across as
knowledgeable of such.

It is an "artificial construct"; it is not a thing of nature. And, the
primary function is to act as a buffer against the cost of publication
versus the public interest in any work being available as cheaply as
possible, as widely as possible, for the enrichment of the public base
of knowledge.

It started with "The Statute of Anne", and I strongly suggest everyone
on the list look that up on Wikipedia. It dates back to the early days
of the printing press, and the legislation to ensure publishers could
make money if they bought presses. Oh, and the authors of books getting
paid.

> Proprietary software tramples the users' freedom, so it is bad.
> > That is a very brief statement of a position.
> 
> Is this the Pirate Party position or only the FSF position?

Does this really matter?  It should be the position of both. To bang the
copyright drum, and go back to books, the point is that there has to be
a copy *somewhere* that becomes completely freely available when it
enters the public domain.

Have Microsoft lodged copies of MS Office source code with the Library
of Congress? Same for all the compilers to build it, and the tools used
to build them. Yes, all the way back to totally free software Richard
might've written.

I am, at 41 years young, a seriously curmugeonly character that thinks
the biggest technological advances in the last 30-odd years can be
attributed to people like Robert Postel (sp?). For the FSF, *and* the
Pirate Partly, the critical issue is could an enthusiast with the
patience of a saint reconstruct our computer systems in their basement
post-nuclear-apocalypse? Right now, the answer is no.

Copyright terms are absurd. Companies, in many parts of the world, can
patent something as stupid as working practices or "one-click" shopping.
You, and I, are criminals if we download a copy of a TV show that was
run on TV when we weren't at home. As the old adage goes, "the law is an
ass."

> My understanding of Pirate Party position on DRM is that it tramples
> user freedom and should be illegal. Do we take the same position on
> proprietary software? Do we want to have a consistent position on all
> things that trample user's freedom?

DRM is bullshit.

Doff your cap and beg to the copyright holder to keep being gracious
enough to give you access to their "fictional" property. They took our
money for decades when options to get content to us, the public, were
limited. Now they use that money to make us pay, repeatedly, for the
same stuff. They're buying laws that screw their customers (us),
expecting to fund their cocaine habit with royalties on 40+ year-old
movies and music, software is just the bleeding edge of a concerted
campaign to lock up our cultural heritage.

> Another possible position on DRM is that it's in the same category as
> proprietary software (tramples user freedom) and that they both should
> just have no special consideration in law. Violating an EULA,
> reverse-engineering MSFT Office or whatever, should not be illegal in
> itself, and neither should bypassing DVDCSS. (And you can still do
> whatever you like with GPL code in your own home, the law wouldn't
> change this)

I think I've answered this already. Did you know that travelling in or
out of the US, and being found with NMAP on your computer, can be
considered possession of WMD? I need a good portscanner as a Bureaucrat
on a Wikimedia Foundation project, but could end up in an oubliette for
having the tools to work as I believe is in the public good.

> But selling unauthorised copies of a DVD, or Microsoft Office, or
> GPL-violating router firmware would all be treated equally under the
> law, as copyright violations and nothing more.

I don't have a problem with that. Like I say, go back and read The
Statute of Anne. Copyright should be for *a limited time*.

> Just throwing some ideas out there to ponder over.

Yes, you may be. But, I think, from a position of ignorance. The
underlying principles which saw governments worldwide implement
copyright and patent laws was for the good of their citizens. That is
why, when you dig back into the history of such artificial constructs as
copyright, you see education as a primary factor for driving a
progression from 'owned' into the public domain.

While most leery of joining any club that would have me as a member, I
think I "get" the Pirate Party far more than you do. Free software is
about being in total control of the general-purpose computing device in
front of you. Reasonable copyright laws are about companies being taken
away from this fairytale idea that they can offer a movie, "For you to
own" on VHS or DVD, and then expect you to pay for it, at the same
quality, another four or five times. Extend the copyright terms, shove
it on a Blu-Ray disc, and sue the customer if they've put a copy on
youtube from a 20+ year-old VHS tape? Yeah, right.



Brian McNeil.
-- 
"Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."
 · Freelance, community-accredited, journalist.

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