On Wednesday 05 December 2007 19:01:18 Noah Slater wrote: > "if code is speech" - it would probably have been called "speech" and > not "code" ... > I totally reject this premise and hence the whole argument falls apart for > me.
No-one's forcing you to agree. I'm saying I find it fascinating - it's the first new thinking in the area I've seen in aaages, despite a common starting point. I've always taken the "free" as being "free as in free speech, not as in free beer". You can treat it otherways too. ("Free as in freedom, not as in beer") That said, this document is fairly old: * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html And that agrees with the premise of an /analogy/ of speech - "you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer."(paragraph 2) Also, that page is using that as a means of /explanation/ rather than definition (perhaps). The definition there is based on defining a set of rules and then applying Kant's law of universality. (cf "Kantian ethics"/"golden rule" in the GNU manifesto) You are of course welcome to disagree with that analogy as well. (After all, it's used there as analogy, not as definition) Free speech & Free Thought after all :-D Once again, with the premise I'm not sure I agree or disagree with Vijay's assertion.... (Either way it'll be a private thing for me :) ) That said, I fail to see how it's not like free speech however if you say this: > Software is an act of creativity (like art or poetry) Poetry is speech. > If we really run with Vijay's argument (which is totally absurd and > hence this is going to get a bit abstract) then I could say "I love > apples" and his argument would dictate that you could come along and > take my words and say them again but forbid ANYONE ELSE from saying > them. Is that really freedom? Personally, I'd say no. I am not the world though. But I'd also say that's not what he[1] said either. He said that he could say "I love apples", and then if you have free speech anyone can copy him saying that (which I believe is true in a public place). They could do so to the extent of taking a recording of him and selling it. Not only that they can take his speech and use it against him. (I can't see how a liking of apples can be used against him) [1] I get really confused with the gender of non-anglo saxon names. If I've got the wrong gender, my deepest apologies in advance ! Oh I don't know. *thinks* What's an example. Suppose there's an oppressive regime exporting apples. They want to sell them so do some advertising. They take the free (as in speech) recording of Vijay saying "I like apples" and put that right next to images of a regime he doesn't like. If the license was CC-BY, that can happen quite easily, but matches Vijay's definition of free speech. Likewise they could even take said recording and embed it into a DRM system that only plays on AmigaOS 2.1 because they don't want it a very freely available piece of propaganda. That would be the equivalent of closing the code. I think. Bear in mind it's not my argument, I'm just thinking it through, so there's likely to be holes. I *do* think its fascinating though :-) Michael. -- "views above might not be anyones" :-) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/