[okfn-discuss] Draft of 'Libre' Wikipedia page

Thu Mar 8 20:22:42 UTC 2012

The reason for avoiding the term "intellectual property" is because the term
is so broad, and covers so many different forms of law, that it can become
meaningless and so becomes a purely propaganda term, usually by oppressors.
The laws that libre is concerned with are copyright laws, and so not patent
law, nor trademark law, nor design rights law.

It would seem to me possible for libre software, when used in some ways, to
violate a patent yet still remain libre. I believe Europe still considers
pure software to be unpatentable, but its actions can be patentable. But is
this true, and should the distinction be made here?

Regards
David
David Hirst
Mobile:  +44 7831 405443

-----Original Message-----
From: okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Tim McNamara
Sent: 08 March 2012 20:07
To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list
Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] Draft of 'Libre' Wikipedia page

Some remarks regarding the terminology.

There is no need to avoid the term intellectual property. To avoid a
commonly understood term is to introduce ambiguity. Even if you feel that IP
should not exist, or should be severely altered, you are doing readers a
disservice by avoiding it.

Secondly, saying something is "not proprietary" because something is used
for non-commercial uses or fits a particular definition of openness is
false. I know it is very common in the open source software community to
make a distinction between free software[*] and proprietary software.
However, free software is still owned by its creators, or potentially its
assignees, and thus still has a proprietor. It is therefore proprietary. The
only non-proprietary works those are works in the public domain, precisely
because they have no owner.

I don't have much of a stake in the article, and am perfectly happy to yield
to others' editorial opinions on what services the readers best.

[*] Free in the rms sense.

On 9 March 2012 08:55, Chris Sakkas <sanglorian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks folks!
>
> Rob:
>
> I've kept OER and OA quarantined under the 'Related concepts' heading 
> to make it clear that while there's overlap they're not libre 
> in-and-of-themselves.
>
> I use 'proprietary' to mean 'non-libre', which would mean that NC and 
> ND are proprietary - are you using a different definition?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
>
> Chris Sakkas
> Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki and the Living Libre blog and microblog.
>
>
>
> On 6 March 2012 00:00, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 05/03/12 09:37, Chris Sakkas wrote:
>> >
>> > But meanwhile I was inspired to return to a Wikipedia article I 
>> > drafted last year: 'Libre'. I think libre warrants a separate 
>> > article (It's currently at 'Gratis versus Libre'), and you can read 
>> > what I've written so far at my sandbox page
>> > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sanglorian/sandbox)
>> >
>> > Feel free to contribute, either by editing my sandbox directly or 
>> > by discussing the article on this mailing list.
>>
>> The article is very clearly written and well sourced.
>>
>> I agree that the term "intellectual property" should be avoided.
>>
>> Concepts that have been identified as potentially including non-free 
>> works in this discussion (such as OA/OER/Open Content) should not be 
>> included as sub-categories or types of Libre, which I would argue is 
>> used specifically within discussion of Free Software as a synonym for 
>> OSD-Free.
>>
>> NC/ND are not proprietary, they are non-free because they do not fit 
>> the common definitions of "Free" or "Open" (FSD/DFSG/OSD/Freedom 
>> Defined/Open Definition). Within the terms of reference of this 
>> discussion they are non-libre public licenses.
>>
>> These comments aside I recognize the article's description of Libre 
>> from my knoweldge of it, and the article has some very interesting 
>> references of which I was previously not aware.
>>
>> - Rob.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> okfn-discuss mailing list
>> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> okfn-discuss mailing list
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
>

_______________________________________________
okfn-discuss mailing list
okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss