Okay, so the story continues: Joe Brockmeier has posted a
rebuttal
to Nina Paley's post that I
commented on
earlier today.
Basically, Joe says that Culture is not the same things as
Software, and gives a lot of arguments as to why this would be true. But
I can't agree with him. Let's see why.
His first argument is "One of these things is not like the other". As
in,
But it's far more reasonable and sensible to discuss Perl
scripts and software written in assembler embedded on a chip together,
and the rights that they come with, than to try to talk about rights to
modify sculpture and essays.
I don't see how one could combine a perl script with an embedded
assembler program, except perhaps over a network, or by using
exec() two cases in which the FSF would consider that they are not
even derivatives anymore, they are "at arm's length", and it would be
legal to do something like this if one bit was released under the GPL
while the other was not. At the same time, it's possible to engrave
(part of) an essay into a statue, for example. Or make a technical
apparatus which looks like a statue but which will play music if you
come near it. Both would be valid cases of some artist combining two
separate and (at first sight) distinct things into one work.
Sure, you could crowdsource sculpture, but I doubt it will
have much practical application. (And certainly difficult over the
Internet, but I digress...)
It's called
RepRap, and it's very
much possible over the Internet.
Joe moves on, with 'Unintended consequences of forkable prose'.
Take the GNU Manifesto, for example. If you could "fork" the
manifesto, I could easily see variant versions modified to justify open
source instead of free software.
This argument had been brought forward during the discussions which
Debian had on the GFDL vote, and has been seriously debunked there. In
short: the ability and right to fork someone's prose does
not,
in any way, give you the right to
misrepresent them. While
I believe it should be okay for someone to base a theoretical Open
Source Manifesto on the GNU Manifesto, I do
not believe it
should be okay for them to
still keep calling it the GNU
Manifesto. It's not the same thing anymore, so that should be
clear.
This is true within Free Software as well: if you fork, you give it a
new name, so it becomes clear that you're not the original anymore.
Moreover, I doubt the kind of prose found in the GNU Manifesto is the
same kind of prose that Nina would like to see in a free culture
movement. Not because the GNU Manifesto is a bad piece of
writing it isn't but because Free Culture likely focuses on
other things than manifestos.
Next, we get "Solving a problem that doesn't exist"
The spark that fired off the GNU revolution was a legitimate
problem because of non-free code, a user was unable to make use of
hardware they (or their university) legitimately owned.
(...)
While Paley and others may want the same freedoms to go with
cultural works, it is not a real problem in the same sense.
Pardon ye me?
I am a musician. Not a very brilliant one, mind you, but I play the
flute with much enthusiasm, and have done so in a number of places. If
you've been to any debconf since 2007, surely you must've heard me play.
Also, I've been singing in choirs since I was sixteen which, I
just realized, means I've now been singing for more than half my
lifetime. Time flies, it must be said.
One of the orchestra that I've been playing in was an extended flute
choir with a rather unusual instrumentarium: apart from 30-something
flautists, the orchestra also had a piano and drummer, a number of
guitar players, and a bass guitar. Such an unusual set of music means
you have three options: you play original music, written specifically
for your group; you play something written for a different set of
instruments, without changing anything, and hope nobody notices that it
doesn't actually sound very well; or you make modifications. You make a
derivative work of the music, so you can actually
play
it. There, I've said the word.
This isn't just true for music; I've yet to see the first theatre
performance that is true, word-for-word, to the original script.
Also, movies use music all the time. When they do, there are usually
two options: either they have original pieces of music written
specifically for their movie (as is the case for most Hollywood
blockbusters), or they take a piece of existing music, and
adapt it so it fits the events in the movie better. By, say,
shortening it, so it doesn't run into the next scene. Or by repeating
the refrain an extra time, so the words line up nicely with the action.
Or by having a group of musicians record a version of that piece
specifically for your movie, which is the same thing in everything
except the speed so that the feet of the actor walking on the big
screen hit the ground in sync with the music. Or... well. You get the
idea.
By claiming that artists have no need to modify and derive from
others, the only thing Joe accomplishes is to show that he really,
really,
really doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Artists have a need to modify other artists' works
all the
time. The only difference with free software is that they either
need to invoke the fair use clause, or need to pay big bucks to the
original rightsholder. Sound familiar?
Joe finishes up with stating that despite all of that, Free Culture
is still possible. And:
That doesn't mean that free culture is impossible. It simply means that
different standards apply.
Exactly: different standards apply. And why? There is no good reason
for that.
Because people make money from cultural works? Well, money is made
from software, too, that has never been a good enough reason.
Because Culture is not functional? How many in the Free Software
movement would even be
willing to only be doing software all
the time, and not ever do anything remotely related to Culture? None, I
would say. Culture is just as functional as Software, it just serves
different functions.
In the comments, Joe clarifies that he isn't against people
preferring not to use the ND clause in the CC licenses they select, he's
just against
demanding that others do the same.
That argument would make sense if not for the fact that the FSF
demands, mostly, that Software Should Be Free!!1!. By not
complaining about the GNU Manifesto, but complaining about Paley's
"Rantifesto", which basically complains about the lack of such an
environment in the free culture movement, Joe just makes a fool of
himself.
Anyway, 'nuff said.
Ten years ago, I started to use ZSH, a shell designed for
interactive use but which is also powerful for scripting usage. I had
a fairly comprehensive 
Here is a short snippet used to select a sensible 
Two promising new developments need to be mentioned. First, we were approached
by companies that develop hardware for brain-imaging and psychophysics
research. They were curious to learn about Debian as an integrated platform
that offers free software solutions that an increasing amount of their
customers demands (e.g. 
I updated the bpo Debian-installer for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0, Squeeze. You can download it from 
Debian mailing lists' standard policy is to allow posts from
unsubscribed users. That of course fits our standards for opened
development but has the drawback of allowing a lot of spam to reach
our mailing lists.
This spam also clutters the mailing lists archives.
Since 2009, a working system allows removing spam from the mailing
list archives.
Today, I would like to put some light on the 
I watched the final shuttle launch this morning; for several years I've
tried to catch shuttle events, knowing it would soon be over, but before
that the shuttle had faded into the background for me as it did for so many
of us. It was an impractical
I agree
with 
We are happy to announce that the preliminary 
I recently heard about 
It s not often that you get clarity and transparency from a Certificate
Authority, so it s good to see that 
A maintenance release version 0.9.5 of