Copyright

GPLv3 issues: TiVO-isation

This is the first of a series of discussions on the version 3 of the GPL. This post will report on the oddly named process of TiVO-isation.

At times the GNU/Linux desktop operating system is seen as the flagship of Free Software but it is important to remember that while the flagship is important and symbolic it is not the foundation upon which the impact of Free Software should be measured.

The greatest technological foundation of Free Software is the use of stripped down Linux kernels in embedded applications. One such application is the TiVO recorder. The TiVO is an embedded device made up of several GNU packages. The device is capable of recording several TV channels at the same time.

The definition of Free Software is sometimes reproduced in a simple â??four freedomsâ?? format. If software fulfils these four conditions it is Free. If any of the four freedoms is limited in any way the software is proprietary. For the sake of completeness the four freedoms are listed here:

Freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

According to the freedoms it permissible to modify a GPL licensed program without re-distributing it, or running proprietary software on top of the GPL licensed software.

The TiVO has modified GNU/Linux in order to implement DRM within the operation of their video recorder. In compliance with the GPL, they released the source code for these modifications. Users are therefore able to modify the code and the operation of the video recorder. To this extent the TiVO is GPL compliant.

The problem is that TiVO contains a special mechanism that shuts down the machine if the user attempts to install modified software. Therefore the user is allowed to modify the code but is prevented from in reality from using these modifications in the embedded application of the TiVO. This makes freedom 1 into a sham.

The new version of the GPL (version 3) will prevent the compliance with the letter of the freedoms without the compliance to the purpose and spirit of the GPL.

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 audio & video

The audio & video recordings from the 3rd International GPLv3 Conference held in Barcelona during June 22nd & 23rd 2006 are now online. The torrent files can be downloaded from here and include presentations by Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and Georg Greve (amongst others). My own claim to fame was that I was on the enforcement panel on day 2.

Posted on by mklang

The missing ideology of Creative Commons

In the continuing discussion on the governance of the iCommons (the international Creative Commons) we have seen warnings raised by some (for example Tomâ??s article) about the loss of the grassroots. Attempting to address these concerns writers are attempting to explain why the iCommons works and therefore criticism of it is unjustified. For example Golden Swamp writes that the iCommons is a network joining up the nodes. While the network is a nice metaphor vague enough to incorporate almost all fuzzy feelgood thoughts on the virtual organisation and loose alliances working towards common goals â?? what does the network really mean?

If the Commons was a network power would be evenly (more or less) spread over the network â?? this is not so. The power of the Commons emanates clearly from the central point of San Francisco. The closer you are to the epicentre the greater the power.

After experiencing the presence of Microsoft and the Soros Foundation at the iCommons summit Becky Hogge at Open Democracy writes a post with the title that says it all â??Who owns a movement?â??

The Creative Commons is a great idea. It is a set of licenses which people can use. It helps â??ordinaryâ?? people participate in the copyright discourse by visualising the fact that the binary situation of all or nothing copyright is not enough. But the Commons is not a movement in the sense of the Free Software Foundation whose basis is on ideology â?? the Copyleft ideology.

By being pragmatic the Commons has grown faster than many contemporary movements. However this pragmatism is also part of the problem. The emptiness of its ideology means that many of the participants in this movement fill it with what they think it represents. The shock (?) then of seeing Microsoft at â??theirâ?? summit shows the effects of pragmatism. Those who want to see the Commons as being based upon a Copyleft ideology quickly must realise that this is not going to happen.

Does ideology matter?

Yes! If the Commons is to be seen as a movement. Without a central ideology the movement (can it be a movement without an ideology?) cannot define its core values and eventually will splinter.

No! The licenses are simple, standard licenses and nothing else. Naturally even licenses reflect ideologies but they are not in themselves ideologies.

If the iCommons wants to become more than a set of licenses (which it seems to want) it must then discard its all to pragmatic position and be prepared to make some people unhappy. Without taking a stance, setting up a camp somewhere, attempting to please everyone â?? it cannot grow.

Posted on by mklang

iCommons Governance

Tom Chance has written a thought provoking article about the governance and finances of iCommons summit in Rio

The second iCommons summit…proved many things about the free culture movement. The most exciting development is that we’re growing rapidly, both in terms of the numbers of activists and advocates who identify themselves with the movement…But the summit also highlighted some issues that iCommons needs to address if it is to maintain its vitality and legitimacy.

From this humble begining Tom explains what the iCommons needs to do to develop into a the organisation it hopes to become. Well worth reading.

The position held by CC is to a large part due to the reputation of the organisation. The belief the users have in what the CC is and what its goal’s are. The question (reflected in Tom’s article) is whether the organisation has a clear ideological goal with which the organisation can grow and develop?

Posted on by mklang

Bush Mashup

Another excellent mashup! Images of George Bush singing U2’s song Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The work is prestented on ThePartyParty. Think about the text of the song in relation to Iraq.

i can’t believe the news today
can’t close my eyes and make it go away
how long how long must we sing this song
how long too long for too long

broken bottles under children’s feet
bodies strewn across the dead end streets
but i won’t heed the battle call
it puts my back up puts my back up against the wall

and the battle’s just begun
this many lost and tell me who has won
the trench is dug within our hearts
mothers children brothers sisters torn apart
(words & music: U2)

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Boy Who Never Slept

Boy Who Never Slept is a free full length movie about an insomniac writer who meets a girl online and a friendship that grows into an unlikely love story wrapped in harsh reality.

The cool thing about this movie is that it is “Open Source”. The filmmaker Solomon Rothman both licensed the movie under the Creative Commons Attribution license and provides the source files.

Not too long ago the Elephants Dream was released by Blender and now with the release of Boy Who Never Slept we can see that the movie business is not going to go unchallenged by the more amatuer content creators who have already begun to seriously affect both the text and music industries.

Posted on by mklang

Free Software and Open Standards

Here are the highlights of the launch day of a project on Free Software and Open Standards. If you happen to be in Amsterdam on Saturday Monday this might be interesting. The people involved are definately worth listening to. For more information and the full program go here.

10:20 – 10:55 Presentation of the SELF project by Wouter Tebbens, SELF project leader
10:55 – 11:10 J.W. Broekema, programme manager OSOSS, â??After Open Source Software and Open Standards there’s Open Contentâ??

11:15 – 12:15 Theme I: Strategic implications of Free Software in the Netherlands and in Europe
Keynote by Georg Greve, president of Free Software Foundation Europe
Panel discussion led by Bert Melief (ISOC, M&I) with Paul Klint (CWI), Rob Rapmund (Twijnstra Gudde), Rishab Ghosh (FLOSSworld), Jan Willem Broekema (OSOSS), Joep van Nieuwstadt (Exin)

13:00 – 14:00 Theme II: The Open Content Revolution
Keynote by Mathias Klang, lecturer at Göteborg University and project lead of Creative Commons Sweden.
Panel discussion led by Jonas Ã?berg, vice president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, with Kees Stuurman (University of Tilburg), Jo Lahaye (HollandOpen), Ton Roosendaal (Blender), Martijn Verver (VPRO)

14:00 â?? 15:00 Theme III: Free Software Curriculum Building
Keynote about the European Master programme on Free Software by David Megias, Open University Catalunya (UOC, Spain)
Panel discussion led by Dessi Pefeva (ISOC.bg) with Peter Sloep (OU.nl/Fontys), Frank Kresin (Waag Society), Marja Verstelle (University of Leiden), Michael van Wetering (KennisNet), Leo Besemer (ECDL), Tom Dousma (SURF)

15:20 â?? 16:20 Theme IV: Semantic web, knowledge platforms, collaborative authoring
Keynote on the development of the SELF platform by Nagarjuna G., Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (India)
Panel discussion led by Michiel Leenaars (ISOC.nl) with Frank Benneker (UvA), Rob Peters (Zenc, UvA, HollandOpen), Gabriel Hopmans (Morpheus)

Background: The EC to invest in Free Software promotion and education
The European Commission is directing more and more money to promote the use of Free Software and Open Standards, which is a strategic objective within the IST (Information Society Technologies) Programme. The EC has signed a contract for this purpose with the SELF Consortium, a group of universities and free software advocates in seven countries, including Bulgaria, Argentina and India. The SELF project will receive funding for the startup period (of two years) of about 1 million euro.

A short intro on the SELF project
SELF (Science, Education and Learning in Freedom) is an international project that aims to provide a platform for the collaborative sharing and creation of open educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards. First of all, it will provide information, educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards presented in different languages and forms.
Secondly, it will offer a platform for the evaluation, adaptation, creation and translation of these materials. The production process of such materials will be based on the organisational model of Wikipedia.

Posted on by mklang

Fun with google & googleheads

Philipp Lenssen has written the book â??55 Ways to Have Fun With Googleâ??. My first thought was that this must be a small broschure â?? but I was wrong. The book is 228 pages long. Best of all is that its available for download here. The book is licensed under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-sa).

Naturally, as one would expect, the book includes an inspirational quote from the song â??The Googleheadsâ?? see the weird song and video here (oh, and apparently you can buy the song on itunes!). Here is the googlehead quote:

On a spring day you can find your way
to a little flower garden where the Googleheads play
You know theyâ??re there by the clothes they wear
And their Googlehead faces and their Googlehead hair.

â??Cause theyâ??re the Googleheads
They shake their doodleheads
Theyâ??re the goo-ga-goo-ga-goo-gah Googleheads.
â?? Laurie Berkner

Check out Lenssenâ??s google website.

(via Lessig Blog)

Posted on by mklang

Creative Commons Culture and Terra Nullius

I recently published an article in a Swedish journal called InfoTrend. The article included an English abstract which you can read below. The journal wanted me to sign a copyright form which I did. Their contract also included a clause granting me permission to reproduce the article on my website – so I feel I must! So here it is. I realise that I probably should refuse to sign all such documents and demand that they implement CC licenses and open access values but then not many articles would be published and I will not be able to spread the word. It’s a catch 22 kind of situation.

Creative common licensing model as an alternative The great land grab between the 15th and 18th centuries was often legitimised by the concept of terra nullius – since the land was not being commercially exploited, it was being wasted and was therefore free for anyone to take. This stance has in hindsight been criticised for its tragic impact on the cultures and ecology of the lands being taken. Thus today the concept of terra nullius has fallen in disrepute. Despite this the concept is being widely used in the debate on the ownership of copyrightable material. The actions of major cultural producers, such as Disney, show that exploiting from the public domain is a profitable business model. This article discusses the implications of these actions and presents the Creative Commons licensing model as an alternative for buildning a body of cultural material, which is secured under copyright, but can still be used in a manner akin to the public domain.

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 report II

Eben Moglen began his presentation by putting recent news in new perspective. He spoke of the retirement of Bill Gates in a way that I found intriguing.
When a CEO states that he resigns there is a period of calming the market. Therefore when Gates says he will step down in two years this should not be seen as a long time. Two years it is the minimum timeframe that will not spook the market. The important issue is that the resignation comes 6 months from the shipping the most important product in 10 years.

Also we can put this into another perspective the FSF is on schedule with the most important product in 15 years. The update of to the GPLv3. The process going to version three is open and public. Philosophically it reflects the rule-making process put forward by Habermas where the idea is that those affected by the rules should be part of the decision making process.

When discussing the substantial changes Eben explain why the GPLv3 has been adapted to meet the needs of issues such as distribution via torrents, the developments within patents and the increase in DRM.

On the latter he explained that companies feel that they should be allowed to have rights (digital) and want to protect them. Many of these feel that RMS is attempting to change their vocabulary (from Rights to Restrictions). But this is not about attempting to use a software license to address non-software problems. The license (and its implementation) is about the software and the four freedoms. DRM is about the attempt to prevent users from practicing the 4 freedoms.

In closing before an extended Q&A session Eben returned to the issue of Microsoft. The falling revenues and the stepping down of Bill Gates will have the effect that one of strongest voices against Free Software will be silenced (almost). In the future arguing for Free Software will therefore not meet the strong resistance it is accustomed to.

Posted on by mklang