Re: [ox-en] opinions?
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 18:11:27 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Stefan Merten wrote:
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Hi Graham!
Last month (29 days ago) Graham Seaman wrote:
I got asked to talk at a symposium about states and the
internet. I'm not wild about this, but suppose it's better to have
someone arguing the case for free software than no-one.
Hope I'm not too late but I don't have to say much anyway - perhaps as
others did. Because it's a late reply I cite in full.
No, it hasn't happend yet.
I only have max. 20 minutes so there's a limit to how much I can say.
There's a first draft below (probably too long for 20 mins). Does anyone
have any better suggestions?
I liked it.
:-)
Is the general idea right? (I'm not trying to make this an 'Oekonux
manifesto')
You're focusing a bit on the "Third World" countries. Though this is
definitely correct it's not an example for the inner circle countries.
It's mainly an argument for a Russian audience - not '3rd world', not
'inner circle' .. some where inbetween
However, the main argument I'm hearing in Germany is the "Standort"
argument, saying that excellent Free Software (developers) is better
in the competition against (especially) US software.
How do you mean 'excellent Free Software (developers)'? ie. how does the
word 'developers' relate to the rest of the sentence?
And in particular, I think BSD people might not like the stuff about the
gpl - would there be a more neutral way to say this?
Ahm - the piece didn't mention the GPL?
/general public licence/i
Thanks for any advice,
Graham
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The most dramatic aspect of free software is not the existence of free
software itself, but the way the core of it has been produced: outside
the framework of commercial software houses, outside the framework of
universities, produced neither as a commodity with a sale value nor even
as research work funded by the state.
Perhaps it would be nice to add something about the motivation of the
developers. But this may be is already too Oekonux like.
My personal (non-oekonux) opinion is that motivation alone is a not a
useful topic - it leads to endless unprovable assertions :-(
Which is itself an unprovable assertion....
Production in co-operating groups is made technically possible by the
existence of the internet. But the existence of such groups is a social
phenomenon, typically at least partly based on physical areas.
I'm very unsure of this. Lots of projects consist of people which
don't meet physically at all. And the *local* community is not that
important for a developer IMHO. It might be for newbies, however.
It's precisely the newbie argument I want to make.
My own experience is also that local groups are also very important in
other cases: people who survive financially by working with free software
(my local perl group is like this), or for people who have difficulties
with English, but where there is not yet a strong localization effort
(which overlaps with the newbie case, but is not quite the same).
Secondly, if I understood it right, this overlaps a bit with the
discussion on 'doppelt freie software' on oekonux.de - if a government
thinks all it has to do is say 'use free software' (the product) nothing
much is gained - it is the people and the process that are important.
Maybe this is a rather too clumsy way to emphasize that.
Typically
the first sign of the spread of free software to a new country has been
participation by individuals, often working on internationalisation of
existing software. Soon after comes the formation of Linux User Groups,
Perlmongers groups, or other such groups. Such groups have often been
started by students, or have a university base, but soon expand beyond this.
Once such groups exist, there is a virtuous circle of feedback; local
pools of developers encourage one anothers development and begin to create
a local culture of free software. This process has seen free software spread
first across Northern Europe and the USA (with a rather separate subculture
in Japan), then across southern Europe, and currently across Eastern Europe
and the larger of the former '3rd World' countries (Brazil, South Africa,
India).
This process has particular advantages for countries outside the 'inner
circle' of capitalist countries. These countries have little hope of taking
a lead in production of commercial software; the best they can hope for in
conventional software production is to provide cheap labour for software
houses within the inner circle countries. Free software production provides
these countries with the possibility of working at world level in software;
of creating a skilled workforce; of creating software which is tailored
to local culture and languages; and of breaking the dependency on software
imports.
These possibilities are not limited to software only. Possibilities for chip
and electronic hardware design are even more limited outside the inner circle
countries; the emergence of free hardware design may be starting to repeat
the successes of free software in a very similar way. The same applies to
all production methods based on digital systems; bioinformatics and genetics
may also be heading in the same direction.
By mentioning this you need to expand your list below to these fields.
Maybe I should avoid it completely, then - I only have 25 minutes to talk.
What can a state wishing to encourage these tendencies do? Since the whole
process is based on spontaneous, self-organised groups who are not motivated
by money (at least in this aspect of their lives) the usual bureaucratic
method of 'throwing money' at the problem will not work. But the state can
do something to defend and protect these groups against the challenges
being thrown up by the commercial software interests.
1. Refuse the adoption of patent law applied to software.
Perhaps this is the very most important point. Especially because
decisions are put forth at the moment.
2. Ensure that copyright law allows the presence of free software. In some
countries (especially those where copyright has been heavily based on
author's rights) it is unclear whether the General Public License is valid.
Where there are such doubts, copyright law that explicitly allowed for the
existence of free software on a public good basis would be a great step
forward.
3. Where forced to accept Intellectual Property law aimed at combatting
piracy, ensure that explicit clauses are inserted exempting free software
from any unwanted side effects of these laws.
4. For those countries involved in the TRIPs process, the least restrictive
framework allowed within the rules should be chosen at each stage. In this
the interests of free software, free hardware design etc coincide with those
of countries needing to protect indigenous knowledge, the right to produce
generic drugs in cases of medical need, etc.
5. While not the core of free software, universities have played a major part
in its creation. An explicit policy that software produced in universities
must be free would encourage this for the future. In particular, since
Microsoft and others are beginning to argue that the General Public License
should not be used by Universities, the right of universities to choose this
license needs to be explicitly acknowledged.
6. While not so essential as protection of free software creation, protection
and encouragement of free software use can also be important. Laws encouraging
the use of free software for state business have already been passed in
some Brazilian states and in Germany, and are being debated in many other
countries. The models to follow already exist here.
I think you should not underestimate this point. If the state
explicitly demands products developed using a certain type of
production that means something to a lot of people.
Partly I'm being too cowardly to use my own argument - I'm trying to
follow what rms is saying where I can, though of course I may have
misunderstood him...
But the whole idea of governments forcing office staff trained to use
Windows suddenly to switch to Linux seems bad to me (not even neutral, but
negative). IF they can do it right, with an element of selbstentfaltung in
there somewhere, ok.
If I have time I should also mention school systems (eg Extremadura, which
seems to be doing it right after the fiasco (as I've been told) in
Mexico, which apparently just mailed red hat disks to schools and told
them to get on with it - zero on the selbstentfaltung scale ;-).
For the government use of software, I wasn't so impressed by what I've
seen of the Brazilian laws (which were also watered down by the trade
unions, fitting better with your earlier opinions on the worker's movement
than mine ;-( . But the Peruvian bill seems much, much better - I think it
would be worth translating the relevant papers from the gnu.org.pe site if
anyone has the time..
Thanks for the advice
Graham
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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