3 ms·

Toward a new self-definition for open source

26 points by blasdel 17y ago

kiba 17y ago
My software political philosophy is built on a wider and bigger framework called individualist anarchism and libertarianism. Now, each ethical system, with the exception of maybe nilhists, have its own set of duties that are owned to other person(s). So what is the duty of my ethical system? I think it can be sumed up as "first, do no harm". Then it perscribe protection from interferences as well protection of the individual from corecison and whatever forces that have decided for whatever reason to attack that person(s), whether it is for the "benefit" of the group or just plain tranny. In the libertarian ethical system, you will not take somebody's property for the sake of welfare or other reason without consent. You also have freedom of contract and the right to bear arm, especially when somebody decided to violates property right and start killing/murdering/looting/taxing. You have the freedom to conduct trade, and compete on the free market, as well give charity to others. However, you don't have the right to internet, free education, free roads, or health care in exchange for protection from stealing and theft(which is sometime known as taxation). As for what this mean in practice in free software for me?(I know I skiped a lot of stuff) 1. Copyright is pretty much a violation of property right. 2. Consumers owned software that they brought by default. 3. It doesn't matter if I couldn't compete with "pirates", I don't have a right to make a living. 4. Economic intervention is wrong. It doesn't matter if copyright give 50000% increase in productivity. So this is why I want to move toward copyfree free software to the best extent as possible. I wish I could license all my stuff under the public domain, but people licensed their stuff under MIT or GPL. I want to use their stuff, so I licensed similiarity. Old code are still licensed under too much of a restrictive licenses. Still, I have some plan to do public domain software in the future.
- rwolf 17y ago
  Creative Commons has a fun license called CC0 that you might enjoy: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0 While I'm not comfortable with the idea myself (I'm a big fan of attribution), it certainly looks attractive.
  - kiba 17y ago
    Yes, I am very aware of Creative Common Zero and I am going to try to use it in latest release of my game. Attribution has worked very well for me in the sense that all of my fears were unfounded. It only seem that copycats only copy when you're popular. At that stage, copycats are no problem at all. Mostly, I am worried about frauds prepretuating lies that they're the authors of my work but they seem to be the rare type.
- mrkafk 17y ago
  "4. Economic intervention is wrong. It doesn't matter if copyright give 50000% increase in productivity." -- I'm sorry, but though I can be sympathetic to the sentiment (libertarian here), the political reality is this will thrown out of window in a microsecond by 1) government 2) public. The first is always keen to get ever MORE money, MORE money, and MORE money, and the public is always keen to get more freebies. So both together will completely squash you (us?).
  - kiba 17y ago
    1) I do not care about what government "should do", only what should I do. Yes, I think the government is bad, but this is like telling rapists he shouldn't rape. He will try to rape. Government like to tax, go to war, and fund pork projects. The only revelant question is what you, personally, should or could do something about it? 2) Beside current evidences indicating that copyright is an unnecesary evil(Read Against Intellectual Monopoly for more info) it doesn't matter if any of us are unable to make a living off software because of no copyright because it indicate that individuals would never have want it in the first place. Nobody have the right to any potential profit.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Wow. Epic. Even if you're put off by the software licence politics stuff at the start, hang on for the personal reflections on the craft and culture of open source software development.

26 points by blasdel 17y ago

kiba 17y ago

My software political philosophy is built on a wider and bigger framework called individualist anarchism and libertarianism. Now, each ethical system, with the exception of maybe nilhists, have its own set of duties that are owned to other person(s). So what is the duty of my ethical system? I think it can be sumed up as "first, do no harm". Then it perscribe protection from interferences as well protection of the individual from corecison and whatever forces that have decided for whatever reason to attack that person(s), whether it is for the "benefit" of the group or just plain tranny. In the libertarian ethical system, you will not take somebody's property for the sake of welfare or other reason without consent. You also have freedom of contract and the right to bear arm, especially when somebody decided to violates property right and start killing/murdering/looting/taxing. You have the freedom to conduct trade, and compete on the free market, as well give charity to others. However, you don't have the right to internet, free education, free roads, or health care in exchange for protection from stealing and theft(which is sometime known as taxation). As for what this mean in practice in free software for me?(I know I skiped a lot of stuff) 1. Copyright is pretty much a violation of property right. 2. Consumers owned software that they brought by default. 3. It doesn't matter if I couldn't compete with "pirates", I don't have a right to make a living. 4. Economic intervention is wrong. It doesn't matter if copyright give 50000% increase in productivity. So this is why I want to move toward copyfree free software to the best extent as possible. I wish I could license all my stuff under the public domain, but people licensed their stuff under MIT or GPL. I want to use their stuff, so I licensed similiarity. Old code are still licensed under too much of a restrictive licenses. Still, I have some plan to do public domain software in the future.

rwolf 17y ago
Creative Commons has a fun license called CC0 that you might enjoy: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0 While I'm not comfortable with the idea myself (I'm a big fan of attribution), it certainly looks attractive.
- kiba 17y ago
  Yes, I am very aware of Creative Common Zero and I am going to try to use it in latest release of my game. Attribution has worked very well for me in the sense that all of my fears were unfounded. It only seem that copycats only copy when you're popular. At that stage, copycats are no problem at all. Mostly, I am worried about frauds prepretuating lies that they're the authors of my work but they seem to be the rare type.
mrkafk 17y ago
"4. Economic intervention is wrong. It doesn't matter if copyright give 50000% increase in productivity." -- I'm sorry, but though I can be sympathetic to the sentiment (libertarian here), the political reality is this will thrown out of window in a microsecond by 1) government 2) public. The first is always keen to get ever MORE money, MORE money, and MORE money, and the public is always keen to get more freebies. So both together will completely squash you (us?).
- kiba 17y ago
  1) I do not care about what government "should do", only what should I do. Yes, I think the government is bad, but this is like telling rapists he shouldn't rape. He will try to rape. Government like to tax, go to war, and fund pork projects. The only revelant question is what you, personally, should or could do something about it? 2) Beside current evidences indicating that copyright is an unnecesary evil(Read Against Intellectual Monopoly for more info) it doesn't matter if any of us are unable to make a living off software because of no copyright because it indicate that individuals would never have want it in the first place. Nobody have the right to any potential profit.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

Wow. Epic. Even if you're put off by the software licence politics stuff at the start, hang on for the personal reflections on the craft and culture of open source software development.