[okfn-discuss] Problems of nomenclature

Fri Mar 9 02:43:33 UTC 2012

Hi Peter(s) and all,

To reiterate, in this context (free/libre software, knowledge,
culture, education, ...) "libre" _is_ well defined and well understood
in many relevant circles to mean free as in freedom with a precise
meaning (links in the PS below).

Looking at Peter Suber's writings in 2008, he seems to be describing
his own personal choices for terminology in his own writing. I don't
know how pervasively that terminology has been adopted in the OA
community as a whole, and hope that the accepted meaning of "libre" in
the links below may be adopted by the Open Access community.

One problem I see is that he did not separate the issues of freedom
and price - defining "libre" to include "gratis":

"I've decided to use the term "gratis OA" for the removal of price
barriers alone and "libre OA" for the removal of price and at least
some permission barriers."

Source: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre

Peter Suber's use of "libre OA" is really "gratis AND libre OA" with
libre ill-defined ("removal of price and at least some permission
barriers").

(imo) The various categories of OA journals (etc.) may be described
sufficiently with the following:

* libre - freedom to access, use, copy, adapt, share, ... <likely also
gratis but not necessarily>

* non-libre - restricted in one or more ways (e.g. NC, ND, edu, ...)

* gratis - access is free of charge <assume it is non-libre unless
otherwise stated/known>

* priced - <assume it is non-libre unless otherwise stated/known>

* libre and gratis <libre resources are usually gratis, but not by definition)

* libre and priced <the price is probably low, optional, or includes
additional services>

The assumptions, "<assume ...>" above, are precautionary wrt
contemporary copyright law:
http://wikieducator.org/Brief_History_of_Copyright

The term "non-libre" is not likely to come up very often as it is only
required to describe the general case (one or more freedom denied). If
a journal is non-libre, the conversants (I guess) would usually
describe it as "non-commercial use only" or "educational use only"
(etc.) and not actually say it is "non-libre". Another word for
non-libre is "proprietary".

(imo) "Libre Open Access" should mean (or be replaced with) "Libre
Access": access with the freedoms associated with libre knowledge and
culture. PLoS for example is a libre access journal (articles licensed
CC-BY), whereas The Open Education Journal is non-libre (CC-BY-NC) -
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toeduj/MSandI.htm

Kim

BC Peter Suber to offer the option to join the list and the discussion
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2012-March/thread.html
without "reply-alls" arriving if he declines.

PS Libre _is_ well defined (in case you missed these)

Free Software == Libre Software:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

The following are rooted in the free/libre software definition:

Free Knowledge == Libre Knowledge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre_knowledge
http://wikieducator.org/Declaration_on_libre_knowledge#Libre_Knowledge_Definition

Free Cultural Works == Libre Cultural Works:
http://freedomdefined.org/Libre

To satisfy those on either side of the ethics/pragmatics debate in the
free/open software world(s) the term FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source
Software) has been used with "libre" being used to disambiguate "free"
(i.e. libre not gratis):

http://flossproject.org/
http://www.flosspols.org/
http://flossworld.org/

and of course: http://wikieducator.org/Say_Libre

-------------------------------------

On 3 March 2012 16:44, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> On 03/03/12 12:04, Chris Sakkas wrote:
>>
>> I’ve been trying to sort out the Wikipedia pages relating to IP
>> minimalism (libre, Creative Commons, copyright reform, etc.). However,
>> I’ve run into terminology problems for works, licences and concepts that
>> straddle the free/libre-semi-free/semi-libre boundary.
>
> There aren't any. There are only free and non-free works.
>
>> My first problem is that I don’t have a term to describe libre AND
>> semi-libre licences that have a copyleft-like condition.
>
> Why is such a term required? It would group unlike things together.
>
> If I have to lump all different kinds of non-EULA copyright licenses
> together I just call them "alternative copyright licenses".
>
>> For example, the OpenContent License is a licence that forbids
>> commercial reproduction and requires copies to come under the same
>
> It's deprecated and only of historic interest. Given its NC restriction
> it's also badly named.
>
>> licence. We can’t describe it as copyleft because copyleft works are
>> libre. I would call it ‘share-alike’, but that term seems to be used
>> exclusively for Creative Commons licences. I thought about ‘reciprocal’,
>> but references to reciprocal licences online seem to use the term as a
>> synonym for copyleft (and therefore wouldn’t include noncommercial
>> licences; see for example
>
> "Reciprocal" is a better term than "viral" as it actually describes an
> effect of the licenses.
>
>> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-license2/). The
>> term ‘viral’ seems perfect, but according to Wikipedia it’s
>> ‘pejorative’. Maybe we could ‘take it back’?
>
> "Viral" is pejorative and inaccurate as copyleft does not infect its
> neighbours by force. Rather it is inherited by adaptations/derivatives
> that choose to make use of the work that it covers.
>
>> What about ‘share-alike-like’? (That’s a joke)
>
> "Broken".
>
>> My second problem is that I don’t have a term to describe libre AND
>> semi-libre content.
>
> There really is no reason to group these together other than to give
> nonfree works the cachet of free works. And that isn't something that we
> should be helping to do.
>
>> As I noted on its Wikipedia page
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content#Definition), the term ‘open
>> content’ is now being used for semi-libre/semi-free licences as well as
>> libre/free ones. This follows the word open’s use in ‘open access’ and
>> ‘open educational resources’, but means that open content-free content
>> no longer mirror each other like open source-free software do.
>>
>> That’s not a problem in and of itself,
>
> It most definitely is a problem in and of itself!
>
>> but it’s lead to a messy category
>> on Wikipedia: ‘open content licences’ with ‘free content licences’ as a
>> subcategory. Until the definition of ‘open content’ settles as either
>> ‘libre content’ or ‘semi-libre and libre content’, I think we should
>> avoid using it as a category. We need an unambiguous term that
>> DEFINITELY means ‘semi-libre and libre content’ to use for the category
>> as a whole.
>
> Why?
>
> Which category of actual things are we talking about here?
>
>> However, I’m not actually sure what that term could be. I use ‘common
>> content’ myself, following from the Common Content project
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Content). However, that project is
>> long gone and the term is not in wide use.
>>
>> So, in summary:
>>
>> Is there a neutral term for libre and semi-libre viral licences?
>
> *Please* don't call them "viral" licences. They are licences that
> require adaptations/derivatives to be placed under the same license, so
> "reciprocal" is a much better term. Apart from anything else, "viral" is
> a pejorative synonym for copyleft.
>
> And please don't call non-free works semi-libre. There aren't Wikipedia
> pages for being a little bit pregnant, greenish red, or dead and alive
> things so I don't see the need for making up a category such as "free
> and almost but not actually free".
>
>> Is there a term for ‘libre and semi-libre’ that we can use instead of
>> ‘open content’?
>
> "Some rights reserved"? But to the extent that "open content" is a
> coherent term it's a synonym for free culture, which means that
> "semi-libre" has no place within it. If Wikipedia is used to help
> launder the confusion, that will not be a helpful development.
>
> I don't think helping to create this confusion is useful. Not for Open
> Knowledge, at any rate.
>
> - Rob.
>
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