Never turn your back on progress. I was offline for a couple of days and the second discussion draft was published along with explanatory texts and the first discussion drafts of the GNU Lesser General Public License. This was a couple of days ago – but still well worth reporting here.
The second discussion draft of the GNU General Public License version 3 was released on 2006 July 27, along with the first discussion draft of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
It sounds like a fictional mystery â?? just look at the ingredients: a lost manuscript about an ancient mariner sailing the Mediterranean (and beyond), fighting naval battles and piratesâ?¦
At the age of 16, Michael of Rhodes signed onto a Venetian galley in 1401 as a common oarsman. Over the next four decades he sailed on dozens of voyages, either in the war galleys of the Venetian navy, or in the commercial galleys of the merchant fleet. He rose in the ranks, attaining a number of different offices, including the highest rank a non-noble could have in Venetian service. In 1434, Michael sat down to write out the manuscript for which he is remembered. The Michael of Rhodes manuscript was lost for 400 years until it resurfaced in 1966 and again in 2000.
Today selected pages of the beautiful work are available online along with maps and illustrations. It’s not all there and it’s not CC licensed (or similar) but it’s a great site.
(via BibliOdyssey)
It has been called “possibly the best Creative Commons-licensed content yet”…hmm maybe you have to be a fan to say this! But whatever I am downloading it now and looking forward to seeing it (and finding out what the fuss is all about).
What is it? It’s the documentary Done The Impossible – The Fans’ Tale of Firefly & Serenity. This is the story of the rise and fall and rebirth of the cult TV show “Firefly,”
as told from the perspective of the fans who helped save it. It was first released on DVD – and the fans loved it. So the creators went a step further – they released a Creative Comons by-nc-sa this means that it’s free to download edit and spread. As the post on P2P blog wrote: “For free, and for the right reasons”.
Read more about the projecy from the release notes:
We philosophically agree with the concepts of Creative Commons. In our opinion, the modern state of copyright is counter productive to creativity and free culture. It puts unnatural restraints on “fair use”, hinders the creative process and has fundamentally destroyed an entire industry before it was even born. Just think of the amazing products, enhancements, embellishments and re-mixes to creative works that could be built with today’s technology and talents. But because modern copyrights are so restrictive, nobody dares do anything that *might* infringe on somebody’s oh so holy copyright. Thus, we have chosen to not go down that road with our documentary. Enjoy it, share it, re-mix it all you like, just be sure to follow the license below.
Done the Impossible Torrent (hosted by Legaltorrents.com)
(via P2P blog)
It’s a hot summer. Brains are melting and work is sluggish. Despite this deadlines loom over us the unrelenting sunshine. My PhD thesis defence is on the 2 October. The book goes to the publishers in the last week of August.
The title of the work is “Disruptive Technology – Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy” and it will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. The blurb on the back cover will have this text:
Social interaction is partly shaped by technology being used. Therefore technological innovation affects modes of social interaction. While gradual technological innovation is often assimilated, some changes can be more disruptive. This research examines the democratic impact of attempts to control disruptive technology through regulation. This is done by studying attempts to regulate the phenomena of online civil disobedience, viruses, spyware, online games, software standards and Internet censorship â?? in particular the affect of these regulatory attempts on the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. By studying the attempts to regulate the disruptive effects of Internet technology and the consequences of these regulatory attempts on the IT-based participatory democracy this work shows that the regulation of technology is the regulation of democracy.
If anyone wants to read an advance version it’s available here. If you send me comments before end of August then I can make changes in the text.
Other facts about the book:
It’s 272 pages long
It’s 103027 words long
It will have a cover design by Jähling.
In an act which is begins to show that some mainstream media is begining to get it! La Stampa, a leading Italien daily has just released its two cultural supplements, TuttoScienze (science) and TuttoLibri (books), under a Creative Commons license (Att-NC-ND 2.5).
Ok so the license is one of the less permissable, but at least it shows that they are thinking and acting with an awareness of what is really happinging rather than attempting to fight against the current legal-technical developments online.
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.
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.
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.
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)
The Creative Commons licenses were launched in Peru yesterday. This means that users in Peru now can choose CC licenses in their own language and adapted to their legal environment.
From the press release:
â??The Peruvian version of the Creative Commons licenses will be launched after the iLaw Program 2006 being held at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University, CEO & Chairman of Creative Commons, will deliver the keynote speech on the importance of Creative Commons Peruâ??, says Oscar Montezuma.
â??CC has been very well received in Peru. It has quickly gained the interest of many individuals and institutions ranging from the private to public sector. Success has been such, that I think Peru can eventually become a promising global free culture spot in South Americaâ??.
â??We are proud of the achievements of the Creative Commons community in Peru. This is a success for all Peruvian authors and creators,â?? adds Pedro Mendizabal.
Congratulations to the CC Peruvian Team.