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

Wed Mar 14 23:41:56 UTC 2012

Hi Tim and all,

> However, free software is still owned by its
> creators, or potentially its assignees, and thus still has a
> proprietor. It is therefore proprietary.

We live and work within a copyright system (whether we like it or not).

But authors can license their work under libre licences such as the
GNU General Public License for software, Creative Commons Attribution
or Attribution-ShareAlike for other types of work, etc..

Perhaps we can think of libre software and other libre works as still
having authors but not "owners imposing proprietary restrictions" ?
(effectively, not proprietary?)

i.e. freedom within the current copyright system - using copyright
(and copyleft) via licensing to enable freedom and wave (other)
proprietary rights.

The Wikipedia article on proprietary software is worth a read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
(improve it if you can :-)

and Richard Stallman's "Why Software Should Not Have Owners":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html

Anyway, in the context of libre software, "proprietary" and "non-free"
are used synonymously. Along with the common understanding of freedom
(to use, copy, study, modify, improve and share), libre knowledge and
libre culture communities have inherited this meaning of proprietary.

Having said that, personally, I prefer to say "non-libre" when
referring to resources lacking one or more of the essential freedoms.

Kim

PS Re: "intellectual property" - as others have indicated, I too try
to be specific by referring to one or more of copyright, patents,
trademarks, etc. as appropriate to the context to avoid thinking about
these things as physical objects or "property".
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
It seems clear for example that the current copyright system is in
need of reform. When that happens, (imo) it important not to constrain
the thinking by referring to IP.

<aside> Future of Copyright Contest -
http://www.indiegogo.com/future-of-copyright and it easy to find
articles and web sites suggesting copyright reform.</aside>

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