Right to Get S/W I Use vs Right to Use S/W I Get · Monday November 06, 2006 by Crosbie Fitch
dave crossland said 6653 days ago :
“Do you have a problem with people exploiting their private modifications and not publishing them?”
No, certainly not.
Let me try and break down the distinction I’m trying to make here, so its very clear:
“Publish” is the key word here. To publish something is to make it public.
In 1992, when GPLv2 was written, that meant distributing the binaries of that software so that the public could use the software sat in their own building at their own computers.
In 2006, when the GPLv3 is being drafted, more and more that means conveying the use of that software through a network, so that the public can use that software sat in their own building at their own computers.
Both are uses of the software by the public. Public use.
That is to say:
“It would be wrong to require publication of modified versions that are used privately, but inviting the public to use a server is not private use.”
– http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/gplv3-plans.htmlI hope that makes what I am saying clearer.
So there is no reductio ad absurdum argument against the invasion of privacy to be had, because no one is required to publish their private modifications. But if they do chose to publish them to the public, then they need to respect the public.
Turning to your above comments, which don’t appear to deal with this:
You appear to be confusing freedom with price. The gift economy is an epiphenomenon of the Internet’s near-zero marginal costs. That is, with the Internet (and especially post-Bittorrent) once one person has a copy of something, everyone in the world can have a copy without anyone barely spending any money at all.
Because Free Software grants freedom to redistribute for a fee or as a gift, and most people like to share, because thats the basis of a friendly world, then Free Software can almost always be copied at the marginal cost – ie, zero.
This is just being honest about the Internet, and has nothing to do with Free Software at all.
While randroid libertarians may suggest that you and anyone you convey software to should be free to use and do with it what you want. But this is patently false, because doing whatever-you-want must have restrictions to protect society at large.
I remember in Bowling for Columbine, the brother of the Oklahoma bomber or whatever, trying to argue for loose private gun laws, and then getting stumped by the suggestion of loose private nuke laws. This is because he hasn’t got this foundational concept of ethics.
Free Software is not libertarian, and nor is it about gift economies.
Crosbie Fitch said 6653 days ago :
There is a difference between transferring the software (source code or derivatives) to recipients, and transferring input and output between users and executables.
These are fundamentally distinct transmissions.
The fact that GPLv3 is having to use the term ‘conveying’ instead of ‘distribute’ is not to include remote interaction in the definition, but to avoid variation in international meanings of ‘distribute’.
Mere use does not entitle ownership. The fact that a user is not entitled to ownership of the software they’re using (simply by dint of use) is not a restraint of their liberty. If it was, we enter the communist world wherein ‘private property is theft’.
And to suggest that people are only permitted to use their private property in the privacy of their own homes, and are therefore not permitted to allow its use by the general public unless they surrender it to the public free of charge, is a restraint of the liberty of the individual and a denial of their right to realise the value of their labour.
The point of the GPL is to ensure that when a work of software is delivered to someone, that the recipient is unencumbered, except that they may not encumber anyone else to which they deliver a copy of their work to.
Exploiting work (using or permitting others to use or remotely interact with) does not constitute delivery of that work.
An aspiration to realise a gift economy in software is not necessarily invalid, but it is a distinct ideal from that to liberate the software developing public from the restraints of copyright, patents, and the DMCA/EUCD.
So, we still have:
Gift Economists – Those who believe the mission of the GPL is to ensure that all GPL software held or used by the public is available to the public free of charge.
Libertarians – Those who believe the mission of the GPL is to ensure that all purchasers of copies of GPL software are completely unencumbered (by obfuscation, DRM, or law) in what they may do with that software (except that they must preserve this liberty to those to which they sell copies of their work).
The difference is, libertarians are happy for people to give copies of their work away, whereas gift economists don’t like people exploiting their software unless they give it away for nothing.
A compulsory gift is not a gift. Let developers decide whether to sell their modifications or give them away for nothing. Until that point, the developer is free to exploit them whether behind closed doors or in an open marketplace.
dave crossland said 6653 days ago :
I think you’ve confused freedom with price. :) I’ll reply in depth later :)
drew Roberts said 6635 days ago :
“Do you have a problem with people exploiting their private modifications and not publishing them?
Why?”
No, not their private ones. The ones they allow the public access to is another matter.
So, if you modify my (gpl) graphics program to make it work better for you, then use that better program to make digital art which you then sell. Bully for you!
But, if you take that same modified program and instead, sell vnc accounts on a server and charge others to use that modified program, yes, I have an issue with you if you don’t release the mods under the gpl. I am happy that GPLv3 is trying to fix that glitch in v2.
I am definately not a gift economy person.
I choose to put my code under the GPL because I want it to be Free. I am happy for people to make as much money on it as they can so long as they do it within the context of it being Free, when they try to subvert that ‘Freeness’ in order to ‘monetize’ things is where I have the problem.
BTW, I don’t really have a graphics program. I do have some GPL stuff though:
http://code.google.com/p/drsoundwall/
http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/
and some CC BY-SA stuff:
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/187924
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%28creator%3A%22drew%20Roberts%22%29%20OR%20%28collection%3A%28ourmedia%29%20AND%20%2Fmetadata%2Fauthor%3A%28drew%20Roberts%29%29
all the best,
drew
(+1)/10 to send email
Crosbie Fitch said 6623 days ago :
Drew, I’ve had a go at creating a case study that demonstrates why the ‘ASP loophole’ is simply a collision of the public’s liberty with individual privacy – and consequently an ethical restriction, and not a loophole at all.
See my recent article: Gladys, Privacy, Liberty and the GPL
Given a recent spirited appeal by Dave Crossland on my Private vs Public entry I’m inspired to review the situation as I see it.
The dispute between those seeing no need for anything beyond GPLv2’s assurance of source code visibility, and those who see that GPLv3 is needed to defend against curtailment of liberties by patents and the DMCA (DRM) is so clear cut, I see it as simply a painful parting of ways. A flash in the pan in the big scheme of things.
A less publicised, but probably far longer lived issue is the disagreement between libertarians and gift economists.
Those espousing freedom believe that if you get software, you and anyone you give it to should be free to use and do with it what you want.
Those espousing a gift economy believe that the moment you enjoy the use of software you should automatically get a free copy of it – it should be given to you as a gift – and if you make changes that others use, that they must be given these changes free of charge.
These are clearly distinct positions and yet because the freedom inherent within the GPL facilitates this latter gift economy perspective, the gift economists have assumed that the GPL is all about obliging reciprocation (exchange of labour for labour), and consequently denying the coder the freedom to exchange the labour of their software modifications for money in a free market, and at that public market, to demonstrate the value of those modifications via remote interaction.
I’m pretty sure there is a reductio ad absurdum argument against the invasion of privacy required to enforce reciprocation, but I’ve not finished formulating one yet. I suspect others have had a stab at it. Please let me know (URLs of) any you’ve come across.
The first step is probably to understand why the GPLv2 never attempted to prohibit exploitation of private modifications. This was not an oversight or due to legal difficulty in obliging their automatic publication, but because it would actually be unethical, illiberal, and nothing to do with being an impracticality.
Do you have a problem with people exploiting their private modifications and not publishing them?
Why?
More importantly, if you do have a problem, why do you think it’s an issue of freedom rather than reciprocation? Or perhaps you feel that the GPLv3 should not assure the public’s freedom, but should oblige reciprocation between developers?
We certainly need two licenses, one to liberate the public from all social contracts, and one to establish a socially contracted gift economy.
You can’t shoehorn them both together.