[Dev] [consensus][due: 2016-06-13]: New version for Parabola Social Contract

Tiberiu-Cezar Tehnoetic tct at ceata.org
Thu Jun 16 09:27:49 GMT 2016


On 06/16/2016 04:49 AM, Luke wrote:
> You bring up a good point, there is a risk of having words twisted, but
> I think that is a price to pay for free speech.

Free speech means saying what you want to say (if it's not hate speech,
but that a different discussion) as your own opinion. Repeating what
someone else said "in a way that has a different meaning" and pretending
it's what the other person said and meant, I don't believe that's free
speech. That is what I meant with "twisting RMS' words".

> People could always try and twist our words even with the proper licensing.

Sure, but with the proper licensing (NoDerivs), it's easier to enforce
it, because it's easier to prove that the word twisting is a copyright
violation than prove in court it's something not ethical/violates other
human rights.

> We urgently need all three categories: Free Software, Cultural Freedom,
> and Hardware freedom.

I can understand this romantic view, but I disagree.

Having free software means having control over our digital tools, which
is the foundations of a free digital society.

We can survive without free culture, because as you implied, people
don't respect copyright licenses and they shouldn't if those licenses
represent abuses. Music and movies are being redistributed and remixed
even without a proper free culture license. Also, there is the concept
of fair use in using copyrighted cultural works in your work.

And adding new hardware functionality to already manufactured boards (or
even less to already manufactured processors) is near to impossible
without remanufacturing the hardware with a changed design all over
again, which most people don't have the means of production to do (or
the money to pay for). However, improving existing software features or
adding new software features of hardware boards and devices can be done
if the software is free/libre. You only need to have programming skills
or ask one of the many programmers to do it, so it's much easier, it's
doable.

This is why it's no coincidence free software movement was the first to
appear 30 years ago, and only 10 years ago free culture and free
hardware design movements.

> In order for information to flow freely, each of
> these areas are critical.

If you're talking only about free information flow, that can be
accomplished simply by respecting freedom to redistribute exact copies,
which is only one of the four essential freedoms.

Thanks,
Tiberiu



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