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

Sun Mar 11 21:12:51 UTC 2012

Sorry *Tim*, I forgot to reply to the second half of your comment.

I think you're right that it's disingenuous of the free * movements to
claim that libre is not proprietary, so I've replaced with 'non-libre' and
mentioned that non-libre is sometimes called 'proprietary' (the free *
definition is the one used on Wikipedia, so that seems fair).

*Rob,*

Not at all IMO. The CC licences handle moral rights and DRM, and future
> versions may handle database rights as well.
>
> They don't handle model releases, trademarks, or personality rights, but
> most of those are hard to handle with a public licence iirc.
>

Yeah, I've flipped back to referring to intellectual property in the first
paragraph, because it's not practical to list all the different types of de
jure monopoly that libre licences try to limit.

You are absolutely right that cultural freedom is a (much) larger issue
> than licences, but the further we go from licencing debates the more
> useful concepts like freedom of speech or expression rather than libre
> become, I think.
>

Agreed. I've tried to avoid the topics of freedom and openness except as
they apply to the legal side of libre. Although there's always room for
topics like that under the External links heading.

Cheers,

Chris

*Chris Sakkas
**Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki <http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/> and the
Living Libre blog and Twitter feed <https://twitter.com/#%21/living_libre>.*

On 8 March 2012 21:07, Tim McNamara <paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz> wrote:

> 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.
>
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