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Diego Saravia * Free Software in Latin America, State and Community. (was: [ox-en] Conference documentation)



Hi list!

Below is the documentation of Diego's talk.


						Grüße

						Stefan

=== 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< ===

===========================================================
Concepts and Debates on Knowledge Freedom and Free Software
===========================================================

Diego Saravia

Published in
http://www.sulabatsu.com/voces/Documentos/FreeVoices-1.pdf

.. contents::

---------------------------------
1. Software and Knowledge Freedom
---------------------------------

1.1 What is software?
=====================

Software is the set of programs that control the machinery on which humanity is
increasingly more dependant on.

Without Software we would not be able to withdraw money from the bank or
extract petrol. Our telephones work through software; election poles are
handled with software; and more hundreds of examples. Our society functions
through Software and the capacity of creating and modifying it determines how
many aspects of our lives and economy are controlled and determined.

In recent years a few corporations have managed the creation and distribution
of Software in the planet, and their owners are the biggest millionaires
anybody can recall.

These companies have managed to achieve a monopoly by using restriction laws on
intellectual property, known as "copyrights", laws which allow the editorial
industry to charge money for every copyrighted work distributed.

For books or music, publishers show the actual intellectual work. What is known
is what the authors wrote or composed.

On incorporating binary software into copyrighting, millionaire software
multinationals ban the actual intellectual work from being showed. They just
offer a sub-product, a set of instructions (binary or source code) which is
only understood by the computer. The text created by human programmers is left
unseen.

This becomes very damaging thus no one knows what programs actually do.
Governments loose sovereignty because they have no security control for their
machines and information. Enterprises and organizations are at the mercy of
these monopolies for any change or issue that comes up, and must rely on and
trust only them. There is no competence in said conditions, and what's worse,
the data for people, organizations and governments that these programs store
are not readable with other programs. Information is owned by monopolies, and
all depends on them in order to recover any of it.

This kind of software is known as "licensed", according to some, and more
recently as "privative" according to other. It usually contains many mistakes
and helps virus dissemination and other things, because no one can audit or
improve it.

1.2 What is Free software?
==========================

In order to solve problems caused by new legal practices on copyright and
monopoly action on software, a group of people worldwide created FS.

Working jointly through the Internet, building the Internet, creating
alternative software and giving humanity the chance to know the source code,
modify it and to use the software as desired and share it with others by
distributing it.

Definition of Free Software: software 
over which there are rights for:

0) using,

1) inspecting,

2) distributing,

3) modifying and distributing its modifications.

software which allows to:

0) use,

1) inspect, 

2) distribute,

3) modify and distribute its modifications.

A social movement, emerging from the community of developers, organized in
hundreds of projects of wide array and inspiration that invented work methods
where hundreds work on the same program and share the results, and where
"everyone contributes a little bit and takes everything".

This is knowledge.

If one drinks a glass of water, that water ceases to be available; if, on the
other hand, one uses an idea, nothing stops another person from using it too.
Every time one shares an idea every one can have it and use it, contribute and
share it with others. Ideas and software are naturally free.

A group that is enriched by user groups (LUG's) and their communities,
activists from every ambit, ideology, organization, cultural environments,
parties and knowledge fields that contribute with ideas, work and social and
political action behind the concept of Free Software.

In a wired world, there is no point in establishing restrictions to the
circulation of digitalized ideas, because this very action has no marginal
cost. We can all offer our ideas and receive thousands of ideas from others. We
can all give one and receive a thousand, it is a game that always adds-up
positively.

Free Software supporters are constituted as a social movement with a political
position regarding intellectual rights and endorsing more rights for the
people. What is hoped to be achieved with the final goal: that ownership-based
licensed software ceases to exist.

Essentially FS is politics, militancy and Figideology instrumented with
concrete methodological collaborative work Software and technological
development.

1.3 Programming
===============

Programming is one of the most pure creative arts, absolutely limited regarding
its expressive possibilities. A program consists in a simple sequence of 60
different characters, which potentially contain all that can, has, is and will
be known.

Carries out everything that can be executed. Pure Language. Functional
Abstraction. Machine and communications.

When this art is freed and becomes collective, the experience reaches thousands
of communities, defining them.

When it is not only a matter of an effort but of a whole group of efforts that
interact and also have a technical, social, political and ideological purpose,
it be comes a universal project.

This is, in essence, Free Software; a project for humanity's projection into
the future without remaining attached and falling into a digital dictatorship
based on machines controlling all human transactions.

An artistic, creative and collaborative project. A process that builds
communities, networks and its own tools: Internet, GNU/Linux, Apache, Firefox,
and hundreds of art-pieces with practical sense and great abstraction.

A process where each software is a work of great beauty, originality,
technique, sensibility, effectiveness, efficiency, quality, professionalism and
which evolves in time with the contribution of hundreds of minds.

A starting point in Human culture, prompted by rising and vibrant social
movement which seek alternatives, making possible another world.

1.4 What is not Free software
=============================

It's not just an array of techniques, technologies and tools. It's not just a
set of trademarks.

[See table "Evolution of Free Software" in original, p. 91]

Any software can be distributed under free legal mechanisms (or licenses), even
those from software monopolies. It just so happens that some of these
monopolies decide on not liberating their software.

It's not an array of determined economical or industrial products. Free
Software economy is not based on software products, but in non-monopolist
services. We can have different scale Free Software enterprises: small, medium
and huge. Software is always available, what can be hired are people's services
to install, configure adapt or even create it.

It is not a monopoly or a sole program. For each need there are different
communities that create programs. For example, for operative systems you have
Linux or BSD, for postgres or mysql databases, for desktops KDE or Gnome, etc,
etc. ... These communities compete or collaborate based on the needs.

1.5 copyright, copyleft and the "copy - paste" culture
======================================================

"Copyright" is a system that transfers rights, granting power to editors - from
authors - , in detriment of "readers'" or "users'" rights. This generally
operates by restraining the right to reproduce or copy knowledge.

Authors are usually in a dependence position or sell their rights to editors.
The latter determines, through individual or general licenses, what kind of
rights they grant each person over the intellectual work they control. This is
sometimes done for a price or a return favor.

Copyleft uses copyright system to create a community of people who share
knowledge through their intellectual works. Using legal copyright tools they
achieve the opposite objective.

On one hand copyleft gives back readers and users' rights taken by the
copyright system, but it doesn't place the work outside copyright system hence
making it public domain. If this were to be done, the work could be renowned
exclusively by third parties. In this sense copyleft is Free Knowledge.

On the other hand, copyleft indicates the reader that if they want to
redistribute a work or distribute modifications done to side work, they must
grant readers and users the same rights they received from the original authors
or editors. In this sense copyleft goes beyond knowledge freedom by forcing all
beneficiaries of said knowledge to maintain it free.

For this reason, copyleft is a system that distributes knowledge virally.
Everything it touches remains free and expands by touching and freeing more
knowledge. As in a judo throw, it awaits for the opportunity and uses the
enemy's own strength to force giving in. A space not covered by laws.

Because the legal system cannot be changed because of a lack in political power
for it, it's better to use its own force to destroy its own objectives. This
legal invention abilitates "remix" or "copy-paste" cultures and allows the
existence of bazaar model work in collaboration with intellectual works.

Thus, knowledge freedom is a consequence of: 


1. Liberties and copyleft, 

2. Internet, 

3. Computers and their content-edition capabilities.

--------------
2 Human Rights
--------------

Hipatia in its second Manifesto [Hipatia: SM-04]_, claims for freedom of
knowledge.

The construction of a society where people's dignity is respected requires for
knowledge to be spread in a solidary way.

And demands Human Rights [DUDDHH]_ to be particularly respected:

1. the right to free culture (see point 4 in the "Everything is Settled"
   section),

2. the right to education (point 5),

3. the right to free communication (point 6),

rights where its execution is prevented - in the array of knowledge societies,
with their new technological basis and communication mechanisms - by in-force
normative patents and copyrights systems. The growing preponderance of said
normative systems facing Human Rights must be limited, given public interests
and its social functions, to avoid restraining human kind progress.

We must build a solidary and sustainable knowledge society.

Correspondent is a legal system modification, adapting it to reality, to
society's convenience and the new usage and ways of the network, putting into
practice the right to knowledge freedom, according to what is established by
[DUDDHH]_.

In this manner, consolidating ethical principals that allow people to spread
their knowledge, to help themselves, help their community and the whole world,
with the goal that society becomes more equal, free, sustainable and solidary.

Regarding this, Hipatia:

* invites everyone to work 

* so all institutions, private and public entities and especially governments
  around the world, manifest themselves and take part in creating and
  establishing a legal frame:

* adapted to reality, convenient to society and the new usage and ways of the
  network,

* allowing everyone to enjoy knowledge freedom, as established by the Universal
  Declaration of Human Rights.

2.1 What happens with authors?
==============================

The three aforementioned human rights: culture, education and communication,
(as well as others) have preponderant value regarding the normative from
copyright law 4 to benefit from their own creation, found in paragraph, clause
c), article 5 on [PIDESC]_ and paragraph, article 7 on [DUDDHH]_:

  "Every person has the right to moral and material interest protection
  regarding scientific, literary or artistic productions on which they have any
  authorship."

The enforcement of this right is limited by public interest and social
function, which is confirmed in the quoted documents.

Rights regarding knowledge don't limit other human rights, particularly the
right to privacy established in article on the [DUDDHH]_. Knowledge freedom
does not force anyone to spread certain information, nor makes it publicly
available; it just gives those who know it the right to spread it, not the
obligation.

Knowledge freedom allows a person to exercise a kind of solidarity that has
been lost today. By default, if the author doesn't pronounce, based on public
right today, the expressions of the ideas of a third party cannot be diffused.
With freedom, the expression of a known idea, if the source does not expressly
pronounce against it, can be diffused.

Knowledge rights are deeply related within themselves because it's impossible
to exercise them individually, or report without knowing, or knowing without
having been reported or educated. Education for today's highly sophisticated
society means having access to all available knowledge, unrestrictedly, from
the first formative stages, with contents and abstractions that belong to each
level. This is unachievable if diffusion is prohibited.

2.2 it is necessary to modify the law
=====================================

Legislation on copyrights, patents and all legal monopolies over intellectual
creations must encourage knowledge diffusion. Technological changes made
systems that encouraged this diffusion to restrain it today. Today's enforced
legal frame, consolidated in the industrial era with the aim of favoring
diffusion of information and knowledge, today becomes anachronic and unfitting.

Impediment on the flow of a certain information, which activates every time
someone who has access to it tries to spread its expression freely, harms
people and society, and benefits only a minority's particular interests (that
don't necessarily match the authors').

2.3 This is all stated in:
==========================

1. the 984 Universal Declaration of Human Rights ([DUDDHH]_),

2. the International Pact of Economical, Social and Cultural Rights
   ([PIDESC]_),

3. the International Pact of Civil and Political Rights ([ONU:PIDCP-66]_)

4. paragraph clauses a) and b), article 5 on [PIDESC]_ and paragraph,

     "every person has the right to take part freely in community cultural
     life, enjoy the arts and take part in the scientific progress and the
     benefits derived from it"

5. article on [PIDESC]_ and article 6 on [DUDDHH]_

     "Every person has the right to education. Education must be free of
     charge, at least regarding elemental and fundamental instruction...;"

6. paragraph, article 9 on [ONU:PIDCP-66]_ and article 9 on [DUDDHH]_
 
     "every individual has the right to freedom of opinion and expression,;
     said right includes not being bothered because of personal opinions, the
     right of researching and receiving information and opinions, and spreading
     them without frontier limitations and through any means of expression.'"

7. paragraphs and 8 on [PTCIDH]_

8. paragraph on [R2000SPPDH]_ and paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 on [R2000SPPDH]_

9. [DUPCTP]_, [ONU:DDD-86]_ and [UNESCO:DPC-66]_.

----------------
3. South America
----------------
 
In these South American colonized territories, where colonizers and colonies
both continue the unending quest for freedom and independence, Free Software
has penetrated into the imagery of many minds with the strength of its illusion
and fantasy.

Cells scattered throughout the subcontinent learn and contribute, form their
first virtual communities and local, national, regional and universal groups.

They organize themselves, integrate and constitute social movements to spread
their ideas in a militant manner.

Convince Governments, companies, organizations of all kinds. Install, migrate
and sometimes also fail.

Work, earn, donate, collaborate, like little ants that as Viglietti would sing,
build and build without stopping.

In the space of Free Software many can participate: programmers, promoters,
philosophers, politicians, writers, designers, organizers, lawyers, musicians,
painters, everyone can take on a role and earn a place.

3.1 Politics and community
==========================

Those visiting find social and political content in South American Free
Software Communities surprising, in comparison to those of wealthy countries.

There are still few and small technical basis in our countries.

There are still few strong national organizations.

There are few and not very numerous user groups in the different cities of the
Sub-Continent.

There are few development projects based or originated in South America. But
all the Governments that are actually betting on Free Software are South
American.

There are international organizations promoting freedom of knowledge originated
in South America (Hipatia).

3.2 governments
===============

There are at least two Governments that consider Free Software strongly: Brazil
and Venezuela, at the moment the only two National Governments in the world.
Venezuela officially and Brazil with great political support. Probably the
country with most technical abilities is Chile, the only South American country
with more than 100 people registered for every million, (106) in the Linux
counter (April 006). And probably the country where Free Software is least
politicized. Uruguay follows in the counter with 60.

The Venezuelan case is paradigmatic. Considering the sabotage against the
Government carried on during the oil stoppage, President Hugo Chavez decreed
(3390) that in the term of two years all the Government had to work with Free
Software allowing technological sovereignty.

Hence, endogenous development is encouraged, investing enormous resources in
the country and in Venezuelan informatics workers that in the past went to
multinational software monopolies.

---------
4 Society
---------

4.1 Democracy or Dictatorship in knowledge societies
====================================================

From a note in "Sete Pontos" [Saravia:DDS-03]_, also see: [Saravia:MH-01]_ ,
[Hipatia:SW]_, [Varios:Art]_.

The combination of informatics with communications interconnects human beings
allowing the creation of organizations that were before unimaginable. We find
ourselves before an unprecedented technological, communicational, social and
human revolution previously unknown in history.

The new developing human, economical and political organization, or "Knowledge
Societies", is being defined. The ethics we agree on, the rights we grant
ourselves, the norms we will institute and the communion we achieve, will in
great measure define and shape human culture for the next few centuries.

Internet kick started the revolution that conjugates phones with mass-media,
the power of processing and digitalizing information. The libertarian spirit
that impregnated this, shadowed in Universities, gave origin to a community of
hackers and created Free Software. Philosophy and technology grew sheltered and
connected to the web, feeding it along the process that still defines the space
and cultural tools of the young Society of Information.

This process is causing a strong reaction. Some industries, as is the case of
editorials and record companies, are destined to disappear or change radically.
They are ceasing to be necessary. Anyone with a computer and a broad band
connection can act as a distributing center, building up common knowledge.

The process is irreversible. Just as automobiles took the place of carriages,
P.C.s and Internet will take the place of editorials and music companies. Early
illustration pioneers, are today anachronic. But they're still powerful
corporations, capable of exercising this power. The reaction can impose some
regulations that could constitute a totalitarian and controlled centralized
world, delaying the progress of humanity. Some Governments and corporations
wish for the Internet to be a mechanism to reinforce their former
business-making ways and their power. On the other hand, citizens and
organizations wish for internet to be a phenomenal means of communication that
will change our way of relating and decentralize economy and planetary control.

4.1.1 The "exclusive appropriation" of knowledge
------------------------------------------------

The establishing of property production means defined industrial society. The
central discussion in 'knowledge societies' takes place under the publicity
slogan: 'intellectual property', which pretends to join three different
concepts: copyrights, patents and trademarks. If one shares an apple every
person has the right to just one bit, if one shares an idea every person has
right to the whole thing. Mechanisms such as copyright were specifically
designed to generate the economic structures that support the flow of ideas.
But this occurred when information was firmly attached to the physical mount
that contained it. Today, the medium can be completely separated from the
content. Digitalized information is uncountable and ubiquitous and its marginal
reproduction and distribution cost is inexistent. Once created and digitalized,
an intellectual work can be copied, distributed, accessed, and enjoyed by
millions of people at the same time, without any difference showing between the
original and its copies, and without even a marginal cost produced by this
enjoyment. The aberration of distributing binary formatted software and
referring to this abject practice and its humanly incomprehensible 'content' as
'intellectual work' and protecting it with copyrights and even patenting it,
made things even more complicated.

The strategies used to delay the unavoidable flow of information are:

* Global Marketing campaigns to label the sharing of copyrighted information as
  'piracy'. Laws are passed to criminalize Internet practices.

* Encouraging peer accusation in different ambits, reminding us of the worst
  practices in fascist regimes.

* Trusted Computing Group (TCG), former Trusted Computing Platform Alliance
  (TCPA), develops a concept of Fisable Informatics (or Traitor Informatics,
  depending on how you look at it). Technologies created to take control and
  appropriation of people's computers, with the intended purpose of preventing
  content copying.

* Youngsters who are able to explore these mechanisms are 'criminalized'
  instead of recognizing their talents.

* Artificial mechanisms are developed for the restriction of idea-sharing by
  regions, times, usage instances, etc.

Life, freedom and intelligence always find their own way. The problem is not
the end, for some hacker will find a door to let the light of knowledge in, the
problem is in the process and what we might lose along the way.

4.1.2 Free Society vs. Controlled Society
-----------------------------------------

The attempts of the old information industry to subsist in the new era of
knowledge only become possible through imposing a parody on the Information
Society. They must be able to control every program running in every computer
in the world. This way, they destroy the very spirit of the new era. To achieve
this, they must develop physical mechanisms and special components that answer
to their interests and take away command from the computer's owner. Every
computer must execute only what it is authorized. When everything is handled
with programs, even elections, the resulting society will be democratic or
totalitarian. Today, while there is still an action realm, we must ban this. Or
at least avoid it being imposed by law.

Only with freedom of program running, Free Software and depenalizing
file-sharing, we will have universal access. Thus, the four liberties that
define Free Software comprise the basic rights of the Information Society:
freedom of execution, knowledge, communication and creation.

Without knowledge freedom, education as a right becomes impossible, as becomes
putting and ends to the 'digital gap'. It is not only a matter of eliminating
the digital gap informing poverty, we must eliminate poverty resting on Free
Knowledge.

The specific battle we must fight: 

* avoiding centralized control of our computers,

* putting an end to any attempt of patenting software,

* avoiding any type of penal laws such as Digital Millennium Copyright Act
  (DMCA) http://anti-dmca.org/ and especially preventing it via FTAA.

* continuing the development of the structure and use of Free Software.

The result of these quests will determine the future profile for all humanity.
The information society was born free and grows to the vibrant beat of
humanity. Keeping it this way (free) we will establish the right to access,
information, knowledge, communication and education for all human beings. We
will build a free, fair and solidary society.

4.1.3 Alternative Ways
----------------------

Today, before the posed challenges, humanity has three ways for consolidating
the liberation of cyberspace, the informatics revolution and popular
globalization:

Political
  Promote changes in copyright legislation, even eliminate it 5, avoid DRM, and
  penalizing copies and most definitely in Internet. Banning the establishment
  for a development not marked by shortage, in an ambit where this is possible.
  Dictate laws on usage and creation of Free Software in Government, along with
  laws to administrate the State's intellectual works. Promote executive
  decrees and migrations in Government, or the educational system. Participate
  in meetings and events at any level anywhere in the world. Process Microsoft
  for its monopolist actions.

  A primary matter is if Governments should use Free Software or if they should
  favor it or if they should choose case by case [Romero:OPT-05]_ ,
  [Saravia:SLA-03]_, [Saravia:NT-05]_, [Saravia:GAS-05]_.

Criminal [Lanier:PF-99]_
  Using software illegally, copying music from the Internet. This is the way of
  most of humanity , and it deals with the habit of ICT use in the planet.
  Illegal but usually admitted. Not recommendable and a big mistake in the long
  run. As Bill Gates once said [Gates:ESA]_ and was also quoted by Amadeu
  [Microsoft:ASA-2004]_, users first use software for free and illegally, then
  they sort of become addicted, ... we'll find a way to have them pay.
  Curiously the law attempts to change the commonly accepted use, instead of
  trying to organize these habits.

Alternative
  Develop Free Software. Erecting a new building. The path or plan proposed by
  Richard Stallman (rms). An alternative for every application. Another world
  is possible.

Software patents and "DRM" can destroy this path and in this sense the
political course must not be abandoned. Patent and "DRM" universalization
constitute the plan of software multinationals and editorials.

Regarding other forms of knowledge, things are more complex. The result of the
battle for Free Software will determine in great measure other battles in the
quest for knowledge freedom.

Today there is a big alternative movement, which gives everyone powerful
fighting tool to create a different world, not only already possible but in the
process of being built, turning computers and minds into trenches.

4.2 Voting Technologies
=======================

Each time someone makes a choice [Saravia:GI-04]_, they are voting for markets
(or for non-markets and for rights), each time a technological option is
exercised, one is voting for it. Network administrators in American
Universities voted for the Internet and with this decision imposed the web as a
worldwide one. Elections were lost by IPX to Novell, SNA to IBM, Net-Bios to
Microsoft, etc.

Now is the time for Software, every vote counts, every choice defines the
battle for Software freedom.

It is also the time for file-sharing, every new developments that allows music
and 'content' sharing leans the scale towards a better more prosperous and free
world [Rehermann:NMP]_.

This way we will have more intellectual prosperity in the Free Knowledge world
[Saravia:REC-04]_, [Saravia:DDS-03]_, [Saravia:EI-03]_ as opposed to an
enclosed privative one.

4.3 Fundamental contradictions
==============================

* During the industrial revolution the fight was between private property and
  common property in production means.

* In the informatics revolution and knowledge societies, the fight is between
  private and free knowledge. Private property or freedom of knowledge for its
  means of production and/or creation.

4.4 Knowledge societies: towards a new socialist project?
=========================================================

Combination of local work, informatics sovereignty, collaborative global
development, digital liberties and technological transparence determine that
Free Software is part of the means to build knowledge societies in the XXIst
Century's socialism (6).

This does not stop Free Software from also being part of other political
projects [Solar:SLP]_.

------------
5. Academics
------------
 
Free Software is dysfunctional to traditional methodologies in education, and
the academic field has not proven useful for its propagation, at least for now
in this Sub-Continent 7 . It is yet to be seen if massive educational methods
gain more presence with the popularity of Free Software. Today people learn
through the internet, via local groups and virtual communities. Without a doubt
one of the top achievements of LUGs is the dissemination of technical knowledge
required for Free Software. LUGs' millitance has been one of the strongest
points of resistance to corporative propaganda and publicity. Militancy vs.
Commercial Marketing.

Some have opted for certification as a means to formalize this area.

A writer cannot be formed without having access to literature. Informatics
cannot be taught without access to the source code. Universities and academies
that only use licensed software are of questionable academic level.

----------
6. Economy
----------
 
6.1 Proprietor industries
=========================

The promise of Free Software competes in Latin America with the promise of the
development of the Licensed Software Industry, which offers things such as
regional call centers for technical support, or software 'sweat shops' where
software is manufactured quickly with cheap programmers and abundant importing
of multinational licenses.

In some countries such as Uruguay and Argentina to some extent, governments
have bought this idea and have granted important imposed exemptions. The
'export' amounts are always made public, but rarely are those of the imports
which nourish them or each countries global balance regarding software.

6.2 Companies and Profit
========================

In many private companies, even multinationals, Free Software has penetrated
silently with some outstanding examples in the region today. They don't seek or
wish for publicity, but he who wants to see them, will.

In some companies and also in Government, Free Software strengthens the inner
strength of technology information, because they can reduce expense and
increase their staff and capability of technologic control. In the
'outsourcing' debate there are those proposing Free Software from both fields.

6.3 Fair commerce
=================

Fair Commerce is a kind of commerce that emerges form a free, direct and honest
(not fraudulent) new relationship between three new economical subjects:
producers in impoverishment process, solidary consumers and non-profit
intermediaries.

6.4 Free commerce and Free software
===================================

Few times have we stopped to consider the revolutionary implications in
knowledge freedom in the business world.

One of the permanent assertions in Stallmanian philosophy is the question of
"free does not mean costless". And in firm defense that software freedom must
contemplate the possibility of making free business.

Free Knowledge has the particularity of allowing free commerce, but avoiding
monopoly. For this it is a crucial base for abilitating Free Commerce on the
Internet.

To go deeper into these matters one must differentiate between "creation" and
"production" of knowledge, one means thinking up and creating the original and
the other means the massive reproduction of it.

In the digital world creation has its cost and it cannot be recovered through
production, hence it is a typical example of a good element that cannot have an
exchange value, thus, its creation must be financed or paid for.

For this purpose we have governments, patrons, universities. And organizations
and mechanisms that allow many to contribute a little. There are also
organizations interested in creating a determined knowledge for their own use,
and in this way recovering some of their investments.

What characteristics does this "business" freedom have?

1. Being free material, there is no means of establishing monopolies and by
   this the generation of corporations and mega multinationals is avoided

2. By making work and commercial exchange easier this allows people to live
   from knowledge related activity. Everyone in equal conditions for knowledge
   is free.

From the merging of both characteristics we get that, in the intellectual work
field, the principals of knowledge freedom easily solveone of the great
economical debates of the past centuries.

People may have means of production, but these cannot be exclusively owned.
There is right to work and make a living freely and formation of classic
monopolist capitalist structures is avoided.

That is to say, freedom of knowledge allows moving towards societies beyond
capitalism and/or with socialist perspective, at least in this array of
intellectual work. Real workers can live form their work, and monopolist
structures that take over appreciation cannot be formed.

Is commerce harmful then? Is the nonfree market of current day monopolies the
only possible market? One criticism to capitalism doesn't rely so much on the
concept of open markets, but in the fact that it naturally leads to the
creation of monopolies. To everyone according to - their work has a guarantee
in the 'copyleft world', where it is not possible to build a 'to each one
according to their wealth'. 'Knowledge Freedom' isn't opposed with "to everyone
according to their needs".

6.5 Creative commons
====================

We have to be very cautious with licenses such as "Creative Commons" with
options that foresee a "non-commercial use", where people are invited to
distribute material restricting its "commercial" use, which particularly sets
aside private or paid public schools (many subjects in institutions are
financed with state grants), block fair commerce, or impedes at-cost
redistribution of contents in environments where these should be sold.

Creative Commons stimulates the authors' right to free choice more than
knowledge freedom. Creative Commons does not forsee its use for software.

6.6 Infinite capitalism of ideas, or Knowledge capitalism. abundances andscarcities
=====================================================================================

.. epigraph:: Taken form a conference by Diego Saravia in Montevideo, Uruguay,
   	      August 2003, written by Verónica Xhardez.

The World, is finite. There must be 10.000 km between here and Paris, I think.
It is finite. It can be measured.

Economy is the science of scarcity. Knowledge is not scarce, hence, it is not
part of economy, it is not property. And if we turn it into property we face a
great danger, that those who own that which is infinite become the owners of
all that is finite.

That is why when they tell me that the U.S. lost 30.000 million dollars
[because of ilegal license use], or that Bill Gates has 60.000 million dollars
[I think] It's a lie! Those are jokes. Because there is no reality, there is no
world... the world cannot hold all this. There is not enough oil to hold this,
there is not enough water, not enough forests, not enough food, not enough
earth... Economy is finite, and making proprietors own infinite wealth can only
result in them keeping everything that is finite.

That is why it is a big mistake to assign economic value to ideas, because
ideas are infinite and those who wrongly start owning these, are really
starting to own things that are finite. All this knowledge is going to be worth
more than the whole ORU, which is finite, Uruguay has a finite space, but there
are infinite ways of copying Word or Windows or whatever. [All of Uruguay
wouldn't be enough to pay off the knowledge being copied in Uruguay.] So, we
must fight the idea that ideas are a property.

There are rights. If somebody writes something they have a right for having
written it. What is that right exactly? That which society grants the author. A
programmer, just like anyone, has a right to charge for his work. I design a
program but I must eat, I have to charge a certain amount of money every month.
But I did it step by step: I worked one, two or three months, then I charge
three months. Sounds honorable, reasonable and logic.

It is unreasonable that I work for one month, create a program, and because
100.000 million copies of this program are sold I get 100.000 million dollars.
This is not fair. To top that off, it isn't fair that it's not the programmers
who own the companies. Because Bill Gates doesn't program, he pays a salary to
his programmers. He pays one, two or three month's worth of work, but sells
100.000 million copies of which the profit goes to his pocket.

Thus: we must be careful with this. It's not the authors who are cashing the
profits, they just charge a monthly salary like all of us or most of us.

---------------
7. Some Debates
---------------

There are some Free Software related debates, some of which are internal to the
community, others involve third parties.

7.1 open source vs. Free software
=================================

Must Free Software be defended because of its technically more efficient
development model or because of its liberties and ethical principles?

This debate hasn't had too much impact in South America. In fact Solar
[Solar:SW]_ has formalized the idea of defending it for both causes and
included that into its constitutive principles [Solar:P]_.

In spanish, the problem of confusion between the words 'free' and costless
doesn't exist, whereas in English it does with the meaningd of the word 'free'.
The expression "Free Software" can be used by both tendencies and the debate is
reduced to its real importance and not in defining the community's identity.

7.2 Politization
================

There are other debates that affect the Latin American Movement more directly
that are related to Free Software Politization.

Some still resist the principle installed more strongly by Free Software in the
Continent, which is the ideological involvement with Governments and Political
Parties. Nevertheless in both the, decree 90 in Venezuela [Venezuela:DSL-04]_,
as in the beginnings of Free Software in Brazil, - Porto Alegre -, there is a
strong political and ideological presence of socialist left-wing.

In general, all segments in the left wing that are involved with the movement,
acknowledge Free Software as and idea that is strongly attached with the
ideology and don't usually look down on right wing segments reinforcing their
positions on Free Software, though this has happened in a few cases.

Right wing segments usually defend depolitization. The politization of Free
Software is theoretically two laned, in practice one laned, and has been and
continues to be resisted by some conservative groups which speak of not getting
involved and not letting Free Software "be stained" by other fights or
struggles. Others question if this politization is favorable at a given time
and unfavorable when there is a change in office, as was the case with Porto
Alegre.

This debate on politics often blends with the debate on economical development,
on profits and companies, and on giving priority to technical issues.

"Politizicers" often bet on Free Software not being an objective in itself but
a means for building a better world, while the "immaculate" sustain that the
only objective in their struggle is Free Software.

In essence, the debate expresses the matter of if "all quests must unite",
linking the social movement of Free Software with other movements, or if a
solitary victory should be seeked without getting involved with other quests.
Many people who think this should be an isolated movement don't even
acknowledge themselves as a movement and see themselves as technical
communities, in many cases only constituted by users. Tendencies which
strengthen in South America, because there are not many software development
projects to add value to the technical structure of Free Software.

7.3 FUD -Fear, uncertainty and doubt: freedom of choice, technological neutrality, fundamentalism
=================================================================================================

In the ideological array of diverse social movements, Free Software opponents,
to fight it, have introduced the idea of freedom of choice, opposing those of
us who say that Licensed Software is unethical and should not be artificially
created by law.

So they say everyone should be able to choose, choose in this case to limit
themselves regarding their rights. In our view, the rights citizens should have
regarding the software they use derived directly form the human rights stated
in the international convention.

We believe that people should be able to know the technology they use, should
be able to modify it and share it without legal limitations.

And we believe that giving private companies the legal empowerment to keep
people from knowing the language that describes what software does is building
an enclosed and obscure world, mostly when software is more and more used to
control human and material activities.

Licensed software emerges from a legal fabrication, from incorporating binaries
as intellectual works in copyright laws. Changing this law would disappear the
fabrication and the problem. Maintaining licensed software in these terms is
like maintaining the right of one human being to enslave another.

"Pro-liberty of choice" parties [ISC:SW]_ blame those who preach Free Software
as an ethical matter of being "fundamentalists". Occasionally, sectors that
defend Free Software and who don't see this position as contrary to Licensed
Software, have the same opinion. Their usual position is that there is place
for everyone. Others see Free Software as another way of making business and
the ethical position in occasions bothers or limits them.

On the other hand this position grants all power to the authors, and in
practice to the editorials and software multinationals. Hence, the only true
freedom for choosing within the framework of copyright (license writing) rests
in their hands.

Regarding governments, opponents preach for technological neutrality
[Saravia:NT-05]_, contradictory phrase, under the idea that one must choose
software only for its technical capacities and not based in legal, economical,
social and political advantages derived from it's free usage.

Technological neutrality is a slogan or publicity watchword in licensed
software campaigns. Anyone can free their software and compete in equal
conditions. It is the distributor's decision. Governments and organizations
cannot be attached to loyalty contracts, they must be able to establish better
conditions. This is a problem that derives from the existing monopoly, which is
coming to an end.

7.4 Foundation Debates
======================

.. epigraph:: From Ontology in Knowledge Freedom [Saravia:OLC-05]_ 

We will identify at least four concepts, ideas, approaches or doctrinarian
sources to support or oppose knowledge freedom. In the analysis of these we
find the root of most of the debates the Free Software community holds within
itself and with its opponents.

These concepts part from different analytical categories and this is why it is
complicated to analyze and structure them without having a previously concealed
ontological stratum.

It is interesting to see the interrelation between analyses based on concrete
interests, from where ideologies can emerge, or general interests that might
structure ethical discourses. Others may take these foundations as morals
[GAUEE:SW]_, [Boff:EM:03]_, [Gutierrez:EMT]_, which can also be founded in
suitable interests [Odum:AES-80]_. Each of these analysis can apply its own
reasoning and, to a certain point, its scientific tools.

In such way, these conceptual categories: ideology, morals, ethics, and the
interests which intertwine with reason, science, consensus and debates to build
up a rich discursive space that connects with discussions on knowledge
societies, while economical, social and political realities define the future
of humanity based on software and other fields of knowledge.

[See table "Kinds of arguments and counter-arguments" in the original, p. 106]


-----------------------
8. rights and standards
-----------------------

This document can be used by anyone under GFDL terms. Does not contain
invariant sections;

------------
Bibliography
------------

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