If you call a software "free" then you should not trade for it. It means, it is given to you without any conditions attached to it. You should not give your data to them, your attention (ads), your currency and so forth. You can't say "free software" and sell it.
That's not free in any universe, and the language is confusing. Call it Software with the Source Code Open (public). Public Source Code Software. And then you can talk about what you are allowed to do with it, such as you can modify it, copy it, distribute it, etc..
If say Mozilla calls their VPN as "free" as in "the source code is open and you can 'fork' it", but they charge money for the service....it makes 0 sense. I can "fork" the code, ok, but can I use it with their VPN servers? No. Then what is the point of that!? Call the VPN client as "Public Source Code Software" that can be Edited/Shared/Copied or whatever "license" you want to attach to it. And call it a day. I am not saying they do that, but I see in their FAQ this:
Weird to say their "competitors" are "free" VPNs. Anyhow...
Imagine if I say "We have free applepies come and get some".
You come to my place and I say "It costs you 15$ a pie". Because you see, the recipe for the applepie is free, you can come and get it and make your own applepie, if you buy the ingredients and cook it yourself....
This would be ridiculous. I can call my applepie as "free applepie recipe" and I'd be a lot more clear. But that's how they are doing with many "free and open source software" that are sold. Imagine the fuckery.
I am quite annoyed by this "free software" as in "freedom" but not "free beer", whatever the bullshit. Look, if this X piece of software is called "Free Software" but I have to trade my data, or currency, or attention to it, then it is EVERYTHING but free.
Insane how the word "free" makes 0 sense nowadays.
At the end of the day, if humans were not to forcefully live under a trade system where ownership and the accumulation of stuff is important for trading reasons, they would not give a shit about these. They would make some software and whatever, forget about licenses. Take it, fork it, share it, who the fuck cares. The only reason they care about it today, is because they can lose their trade advantage. If you take my shit (software) and trade it, I will lose. 'cause I also have to trade for food and stuff. So this system forces us to be scumbags with each other.
I created a lot of books, all are available here
tromsite.com/books/ - are they "free", what license are they under? People ask.
Fuck this nonsense. I do not trade them so I do not care. They are there and are
trade-free for anyone, you do not have to give me anything in return. Do what you want with them. That's how we all should be. And I had to invent this trade-free thing/idea simply because the "free" had no more meaning in today's world.
The struggle is real, companies, charlatans - well merchants of all shapes and forms - are gonna maximize their trade advantage and skills, and in doing so they are abusing, raping, concepts like "free".
- If a software is only available to you for a limited amount of time, then you have to trade currency to use it, IT IS NOT FREE.
- If a software locks certain features unless you trade currency to unlock them, then IT IS NOT FREE.
- If a software puts ads into it, so you have to trade your attention, then IT IS NOT FREE.
- If a software mines your data, IT IS NOT FREE.
Got it? :D
We have a trade-free library of hundreds of apps here tromjaro.com/apps/ - these are properly "free" apps. That's the difference.
Humans...wasting their time on this planet with licenses, rules, laws, fuckery....focus on solving cancer, explore other worlds, understand the nature, etc..
#tromlive
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Freedom is a very broad concept, that includes free from currency exchange, but is not at all limited to it. In general a freedom is a freedom from one constraint. Free software has a very precise definition in terms of four "fondamental" freedoms. This is an absolutely correct use of the word "free".
Just because it is not free in the one meaning you have in mind doesn't mean it is not free in any sense. Using the word in another meaning than your favorite one is not abusing it.
It makes sense to call a software free and to sell a paid service based on it, as long as you don't call the service itself "free". Is Nextcloud free?
How are the free CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA about keeping a trade advantage though? How about the GPL, the MIT, the Apache, ... ?
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Free software, free beer, free housing, free food, free access, we use the word "free" mostly to mean "money free". That's how it evolved, in contrast to "paid" that we are forced to in this trade based society. That being said, calling it "free software" that costs 10$ is very unusual and thus very confusing.
Yes I know what the "freedoms" of FOSS are, we even made a few videos about it, but my point was that it is confusing and nonsensical to even have such approaches.
... Show more...In a trade based society free is associated with the opposite of trade. Free housing, free meal, free water, free....something else. Free software ignores exactly that "freedom" which is the most popular one. Free Software means you can sell it, mine people's data (data trade), insert ads into it, and so much more. However you can edit, redistribute the code, and a few more things. That is why it is hellish confusing.
Free software, free beer, free housing, free food, free access, we use the word "free" mostly to mean "money free". That's how it evolved, in contrast to "paid" that we are forced to in this trade based society. That being said, calling it "free software" that costs 10$ is very unusual and thus very confusing.
Yes I know what the "freedoms" of FOSS are, we even made a few videos about it, but my point was that it is confusing and nonsensical to even have such approaches.
In a trade based society free is associated with the opposite of trade. Free housing, free meal, free water, free....something else. Free software ignores exactly that "freedom" which is the most popular one. Free Software means you can sell it, mine people's data (data trade), insert ads into it, and so much more. However you can edit, redistribute the code, and a few more things. That is why it is hellish confusing.
That is the service, the software itself. Nextckoud for example is a trade-free software since you can grab the source code and install on your server and have it work as Nextcloud. You can not do that with Mozilla's VPN. They have it baked in their own VPN and servers. Unless you setup your own VPN service and use that somehow as the client, then sure. But it is light years away from Nextcloud or similar services.
Because they want to avoid companies from abusing these pieces of software and later on be sued by them. Unfortunately if you don't attach any such license today to your software Microsoft can grab it and slap a proprietary license and even you can't use it anymore. The truth is even with these licenses everyone does as they wish.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •The confusion arises from the English language, which uses the same word "free" to mean "gratis". In French, when I say "libre" it is clear that it has nothing to do with "gratuit". This is why, even in English, people often use FLOSS, with L for Libre.
I agree many people are still confused with that, but the solution is to edicate them to make it less confusing, rather than just erasing the difficult concept
What is nonsensical about such an approach? Those freedoms make sense, granting them makes sense.
... Show more...It is a legal advantage then, not a
The confusion arises from the English language, which uses the same word "free" to mean "gratis". In French, when I say "libre" it is clear that it has nothing to do with "gratuit". This is why, even in English, people often use FLOSS, with L for Libre.
I agree many people are still confused with that, but the solution is to edicate them to make it less confusing, rather than just erasing the difficult concept
What is nonsensical about such an approach? Those freedoms make sense, granting them makes sense.
It is a legal advantage then, not a trading one. It would still exist in a society that has no trade but only a law that requires to cite the author of some piece of work.
Keeping a company from usurping author's rights does not necessarily have anything to do with a trading potential. One may want to avoid their words be put out of context to advocate for the opposite opinion. One may also want people to know that they are the author so that they can come to them for question, instead of a company that could misreply for evil purposes.
Licenses can also be used to promote trade-free approaches. Copyleft licences can legally ensure that a modified free software stays free. CC-BY-NC license can legally forbid to use the work for trading purpose.
You literally said "I can "fork" the code, ok, but can I use it with their [...] servers?", as a way to argue that Mozilla VPN is not free, this would also make Nextcloud non-free.
Now the point is that Mozilla VPN is just not free. So instead of raging against the definition of free software, you should probably just complain that Mozilla VPN is not one...
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •And yet this is an english-born idea. So perhaps they should have chosen a better wording for it. Of course the context takes care of this, but here the association of free-software with also paid-for software that can be the same thing, is utterly confusing.
Like I explained in the post, it is nonsensical to even have such labels/licenses. People should just do things, and that's it. Like we do at TROM. Or others who are doing similar work.
... Show more...Heh and this is the interesting point now, why a society where trade is not the main thing, would even have such a law? Licenses are to protect the ownership of digital stuff. But why? Because people are mean and egocentric and want their na
And yet this is an english-born idea. So perhaps they should have chosen a better wording for it. Of course the context takes care of this, but here the association of free-software with also paid-for software that can be the same thing, is utterly confusing.
Like I explained in the post, it is nonsensical to even have such labels/licenses. People should just do things, and that's it. Like we do at TROM. Or others who are doing similar work.
Heh and this is the interesting point now, why a society where trade is not the main thing, would even have such a law? Licenses are to protect the ownership of digital stuff. But why? Because people are mean and egocentric and want their name on the software? No. Because they use that enforced ownership to either gain some trading advantages (only I can sell it) or avoid being punished in the game of trade, where others can grab your software and trade it, thus making it not available for you, or you may be sued if you are using it. So it is all-about-that-trade.
Why not labels, and not licenses? We use the "trade-free" label and attach it to our stuff, but it is not a license, meaning we do not "mandate" this or that. Difference.
And that's what I'm talking about. It is necessary in a trade-based society else why would it matter? Say I release a video player and label it trade-free. Or do not label it. I publish the source code and that's all. Anyone can grab do whatever they want, etc.. No rules, no laws. Simple. Efficient. That's how the world should be if it were to be saner.
I am confused. What? I NEED Mozilla's VPN servers/proxies else their VPN client is a dead piece of software. I do not need anything from Nextcloud. I can install it on my server and has all of the features of Nextcloud. The Mozilla VPN client has no purpose other than connecting to other servers around the world to let you change your IP. And since this last part is under a paywall of Mozilla, their client is a dead piece of software unless you can fork it and have your own servers around the world and set them like that. Isn't that the case?
MegaSync has their desktop client as open source. So? Can it be used for anything other than the MegaSync services?
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Does a better wording exist in english though?
Hence borrowing "libre" from French or Spanish.
I provided two motivations for that:
- avoiding one's word being taken out of context to mean something else
- have users' questions directed to the right person
I think the latter is very important, and is also why scientific publications are signed.
To this you can also add that usurping someone's work as our own is also misrepresenting our own capacities, hence abusing anyone trusting us to reproduce this quality of work.
... Show more...Of course, promoting a trade-free approach only makes sense in a trade-based society. I think you got slightly confused with the structure of my comment.
Does a better wording exist in english though?
Hence borrowing "libre" from French or Spanish.
I provided two motivations for that:
- avoiding one's word being taken out of context to mean something else
- have users' questions directed to the right person
I think the latter is very important, and is also why scientific publications are signed.
To this you can also add that usurping someone's work as our own is also misrepresenting our own capacities, hence abusing anyone trusting us to reproduce this quality of work.
Of course, promoting a trade-free approach only makes sense in a trade-based society. I think you got slightly confused with the structure of my comment.
You would not need their servers if their VPN (I mean both client-side and server-side) was free, you would only need some servers.
In fact, it could also be the case if their client only was free, as long as it has an API that one can use in their server-side software.
Yes, that is the point, if their software was free and you could fork it and deploy it on a bunch of servers, you wouldn't need their servers. But you could still pay to use them. Just like Nextcloud.
So again, the problem is not that being a free software does not prevent it from being the heart of a paid service, it is simply that it is not a free software.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Yes Open Source Software, or Public Source Software.
These are not the primary motives for such licenses from what I can understand. Since these licenses imply a lot of restrictions of use. Saying that the author desires to be mentioned when his/her work is forked is one thing, the difference between licenses and how you can use or not a piece of software is another.
... Show more...True. I give you an example: Borg. We can easily implement Borg as a backup solution both as the client and as server. But Borg also provides services for a charge for borgbase.com. In such a case yes, the Borg server and client software are "free" as in trade-free, but not BorgBase.
Yes Open Source Software, or Public Source Software.
These are not the primary motives for such licenses from what I can understand. Since these licenses imply a lot of restrictions of use. Saying that the author desires to be mentioned when his/her work is forked is one thing, the difference between licenses and how you can use or not a piece of software is another.
True. I give you an example: Borg. We can easily implement Borg as a backup solution both as the client and as server. But Borg also provides services for a charge for borgbase.com. In such a case yes, the Borg server and client software are "free" as in trade-free, but not BorgBase.com. Mozilla's VPN server and client can be the same, is true, but I do not know if they are. Can one deploy a server and a client using their software easily?
But that is truly besides the point of this post. I was talking about Mozilla addressing their VPN Service, not software, and calling it "free" + the free software" ideology that is very confusing. That0s the salad I was talking about.
If Mozilla would say: "Our server and client for the VPN are Open Source and here are the things you can do with the code, but our VPN service is paid for" then such a clear message would be far better than what we have today.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •I don't really agree : those words really carry the meaning that the code is publicly available, not that you are legally free to use it in various ways.
I fail to see the difference between what you call a label and a very permissive license.
Depends on the license. Except maybe for the GPL, none of the licenses I cited seem that restrictive.
Personally, I mostly use free licenses for those reasons. I think it is legitimate that I get cited as the author of my work. There might also be some ego component to that, but not necessarily about money earning potential.
While it might not be the main raisons people use licenses or labels, I think it is enough to not call them nonsensical.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •That's why licenses can clear things out. It is better than calling it "free software". Much better. I don't like licenses, but is better with them + Open Source, than with them + Free Software. Anyway this is an old debate, but in terms of wording I find it a lot more confusing when using "Free Software".
This is the difference:
... Show more...A label is not an enforcer.
That's why licenses can clear things out. It is better than calling it "free software". Much better. I don't like licenses, but is better with them + Open Source, than with them + Free Software. Anyway this is an old debate, but in terms of wording I find it a lot more confusing when using "Free Software".
This is the difference:
A label is not an enforcer.
From what I know licenses are a "legal" reinforcement of some ideals, such as for software you cannot do this or that with it. Considering that they are rarely respected anyway from what I know, then yes I would stand behind the label of "nonsense". Why not make a piece of software and put it out there and forget about these licenses? Wouldn't that be a better approach? Less headaches, less debates.
How come I can do that? With books, even some software/code, videos, and so on. I'd love to see such a world...
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Note that it is the opposite : licenses don't tell you what you can't do, but what you can do.
The default situation is that you cannot do anything, and the licence allows you to do things you would not have the right to otherwise.
For example, if there are two licenses with no additional information,it means that one can use either of them, rather than both.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •And by telling you what you can do, they tell you what you can't. It is the same. "You can share the code ONLY if you mention the original author". "You can modify and redistribute ONLY if you use the same license." And so on. No sane society can make use of these.
Software licenses are, in my view and under my arguments, useless and primitive. A sign of a traumatized species. And I am not even exaggerating. Think about it, if you make a software, why in the right mind you want to restrict its use? Unless you are traumatized by this society and you want to "own" that software for your own gain or out of fear. Mind you, a reminder: a piece of software is digital so it can be copied endlessly. Put these together....to me this attitude of software licenses are a sad outcome of traumatized humans.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •It is not the same, in the sense that if there is no license, you cannot do anything.
You cannot publish a modified version of any text you find in a book or online, that is called plagiarism and is due to existing laws.
By licensing your projects, you allow for things that would otherwise be forbidden.
The license does not have to have associated conditions, see the WTFPL.
Whether plagiarism should be a thing is a legitimate question.
But in this world where plagiarism exists, licensing is a way to guarantee your users that you won't sue them for plagiarism.
If you publish your books without any license, the publishers of a modified version need to trust that you won't change your mind and sue them for plagiarism.
In this world, the trading advantage offered by licensing your work is actually smaller than the one of not licensing it.
Licensing your work is giving up some of your trading advantage in favor of your user.
Liwott
in reply to Liwott • • •To put it simply, when a license allows to do something under certain conditions, it does not establish that you cannot do it otherwise, it reminds it.
If we are in someone's home and I remind you that you cannot take anything, I am not the one forbidding you.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Licenses are about restrictions. Take the less restrictive of licenses, MIT:
Notice the word "restriction". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Lice…
And that's an extreme example of a less restrictive license there is.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •This is a weird concept. We have no licenses for our TROM materials and it means the opposite of what you just said. It means there are no restrictions.
And again this is a result of how trade traumatized humans into guarding their stuff, even if they are digital and endlessly able to be replicated.
Exactly as I was saying, humans apply these licenses and such because of trade reasons primarily.
... Show more...How can t
This is a weird concept. We have no licenses for our TROM materials and it means the opposite of what you just said. It means there are no restrictions.
And again this is a result of how trade traumatized humans into guarding their stuff, even if they are digital and endlessly able to be replicated.
Exactly as I was saying, humans apply these licenses and such because of trade reasons primarily.
How can that be? If I attach no license it means anyone can do whatever they want with my books. It means I do not care about these things. If I license it it means I restrict it.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •This is how you would want it to work, but it is not how author's right law works. From Wikipedia :
.
That's an opinion of yours. Author's rights include moral rights, of which I gave examples earlier, which have little to do with trading.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •You want to force me to be an author or follow certain rules. But I am not. I am not an author. I am a human. I created some things and I put them on the web. Digitally. That's all. Whatever one does with them is up to them. As simple as that. That's how a sane society should work.
It is not. It is a direct result of trade. Authors need to own their work in order to trade it. Else they would not bother with licenses.
These are a tiny minority of reasons of course. Most authors trade their books, if all they cared was the "moral right" whatever that is, then they should not trade them and sue others who use them for educational purposes and such.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •I am not forcing you to anything, I am explaining to you the legal status of unlicensed work.
Isn't that precisely what "author" means?
But they are part of the reason. My point is not that they are as proeminent as trade-based reasons in today's society. As pointed by @Rokosun , trade is indeed the reason copyright and author's right came into existence, themselves causing the existence of licenses.
My point is that the existence of those reasons could justify the existence of some form of author's right, and hence of licenses, even in a trade-free society.
While it is not that incorrect to call them products of trade, they are not nonsensical in the absence of it.
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Tio
in reply to Liwott • •I understand. If this is true and digital stuff that has no license attach to it is restrictive by default then as @Rokosun explained it is very likely a result of trade. An I was explaining how I do things but then you said I am not right since this "author's law" or whatever. I explained I am not an author and I do not care what people do with my books. Writing books does not make me an "author", makes me a human who writes books. An "author" is usually someone who has that as their job. Mine is not. I also write blog posts, do videos, and a lot more. Am I a video editor, software developer, and what not? You can call me that, but that is misleading since these are normally "jobs".
In any case, I doubt that work that has no license attached to it becomes restrictive by default. But if that's the case then ok, the retardation is not surprising to me.
... Show more...I understand. If this is true and digital stuff that has no license attach to it is restrictive by default then as @Rokosun explained it is very likely a result of trade. An I was explaining how I do things but then you said I am not right since this "author's law" or whatever. I explained I am not an author and I do not care what people do with my books. Writing books does not make me an "author", makes me a human who writes books. An "author" is usually someone who has that as their job. Mine is not. I also write blog posts, do videos, and a lot more. Am I a video editor, software developer, and what not? You can call me that, but that is misleading since these are normally "jobs".
In any case, I doubt that work that has no license attached to it becomes restrictive by default. But if that's the case then ok, the retardation is not surprising to me.
Yes but as I said before the approach should perhaps be labels rather than licenses that are a reinforcer of laws. And they do not work anyway.
Give me an example of a license in a trade-free society that makes sense?
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Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •This is only onf of the definitions of what an author is. I think the first one is the most prevalent, unless you can proof the opposite. It is (very clearly, I think) the one I meant.
It is the first time that I hear that copyright might only apply to works created in a professional context. I can tell you that it does not work that way in Belgium, see the government's website. I have no reason to believe it is different in other countries, but feel free to contradict me with proofs.
... Show more...CC-BY. The right to be recognized as the author of
This is only onf of the definitions of what an author is. I think the first one is the most prevalent, unless you can proof the opposite. It is (very clearly, I think) the one I meant.
It is the first time that I hear that copyright might only apply to works created in a professional context. I can tell you that it does not work that way in Belgium, see the government's website. I have no reason to believe it is different in other countries, but feel free to contradict me with proofs.
CC-BY. The right to be recognized as the author of your work exists independently of trade, see the examples I mentioned above.
Think about scientific publications. Being recognized as the author of a publication makes people likely to come with you for questions. It also encourages them to collaborate with you on related people. There is trade involved, as publications are the key to getting positions, but not only, otherwise people would stop signing single-authored papers once they have a permanent position.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Look, you can create any world of imagination that you desire, but you cannot force that on anyone else. I write many things, books is just a word to describe these text-based things that I put under a different link. Are all people who write online, authors? No. We can stop at that, because this is becoming repetitive and non-fruitful.
Sure, that can be important for some. But in a saner society you do not have to enforce it. What would be my reason not to mention the author of a scientific paper for instance? Unless I copy that paper and try to sell it under my name. Yes there are other minor motives but they fade away quickly if the ones based on trade are taken into account.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •What I called an author in this conversation is exculisively the definition 1 on Wiktionary :
In this sense, yes, a person writing an online publication is called its author. I am not forcing anything onto anyone, I am only using words to talk about them.
This is also what the law considers as an author, which is how the term "author" appeared in this conversation. Please understand that and stop complaining about me (and the law) not using your favorite definition of the word.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •You refuse to understand that a label vs a job are different. I write many things in many places. That's what I do, for fun. If you call me a bluba-duba or autheur or whatever, is your problem. This is different from someone who specifically writes for a magazine or books and it is paid for that, and his/her job description is that of an author. Also someone who studied to become one and has a "diploma".
Anyway what is the point here? Are you saying that if I, the human Tio, write stuff and put them online in various forms and in various places, then if I do not add a license to these things I create (videos, photos, text, etc.) then I legally restrict them from being used because I want it or not, the law says that?
If that's what you say, fine, you may be wrong or right, it does not matter. Anyone can still use my stuff without giving me anything in return. 99% of the internet is like that. Get used to it.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •I understand that very well, but I never said anything about a job here. When I said author, I always meant it in the sense of creator.
Yes. If you sue someone for distributing copies of your work without permission, you will win. If you do the same for a licensed work (and they respected the terms), you will lose.
You think that releasing a work without license makes the user free to copy it, but it is not true : they are free to copy it only under the condition that they trust you for not suing them in the future. Licensing your work frees them from the need to trust you.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •A "creator" means many things...
Good luck with winning at that for comments and whatever you post on the web. You talk in theory, in an "ideal" legal world whatever that means. The reality is different.
Look at the web for a few hours and tell me where you see licenses. Most of the time you do not. Is the world full of lawsuits? No. You need to prove you "own" a piece of whatever "work" you did and where you posted and if you made it public and what not. If it was as you said all companies would put their stuff online without any license, and whoever touches it they will be sued into oblivion. The opposite is true, they hide it and spend a lot of energy on that. They register trademarks and so forth.
... Show more...A "creator" means many things...
Good luck with winning at that for comments and whatever you post on the web. You talk in theory, in an "ideal" legal world whatever that means. The reality is different.
Look at the web for a few hours and tell me where you see licenses. Most of the time you do not. Is the world full of lawsuits? No. You need to prove you "own" a piece of whatever "work" you did and where you posted and if you made it public and what not. If it was as you said all companies would put their stuff online without any license, and whoever touches it they will be sued into oblivion. The opposite is true, they hide it and spend a lot of energy on that. They register trademarks and so forth.
My friend are you the god almighty telling me how my work can be used? Jesus haha. If I say anyone can use it trade-free, then that's how it is.
Calm down my god. Or calm down, my god :). Let's stop with this nonsense honestly. You should become a lawyer and deal with the paperwork and all that fun stuff and give me some space. My work is trade-free, you want to accept it or not.
Rokosun
in reply to Liwott • •@Liwott
... Show more...We can't say with 100% certainty how a trade-free society would look like, we might be able to make some kinda speculation by looking at how trade impacts our world today, but that's all. And with that being said, we could say that licenses won't be as prevalent if trade didn't exist because most licences are used today for trade purposes, even copyleft licenses are an indirect result of trade. And I understand your point that there are other use cases of licenses, but almost all of these reasons are caused by a distrust in others, and a big reason for this distrust is that there are lots of charlatans in our trade based society who're waiting to take advantage of our work, one way or another. So maybe if trade didn't exist then people will have more trust with each other, because they're not competing with each other anym
@Liwott
We can't say with 100% certainty how a trade-free society would look like, we might be able to make some kinda speculation by looking at how trade impacts our world today, but that's all. And with that being said, we could say that licenses won't be as prevalent if trade didn't exist because most licences are used today for trade purposes, even copyleft licenses are an indirect result of trade. And I understand your point that there are other use cases of licenses, but almost all of these reasons are caused by a distrust in others, and a big reason for this distrust is that there are lots of charlatans in our trade based society who're waiting to take advantage of our work, one way or another. So maybe if trade didn't exist then people will have more trust with each other, because they're not competing with each other anymore. Like I said before, we can only speculate right now how it'll be, but looking at how trade has a big impact on creating distrust between people, licenses could become obsolete if this distrust goes away.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Maybe you should reply instead of me from now on. These days I have 0 patience and am a bit frustrated with the documentary so I can't handle these discussions that well haha. Pisses me off when I see this waste of time that people engage in, that doesn't work anyway. If anyone "violates" your "license" you better have good lawyers and a lot of money to do something about it....so they are bullshit even for trade purposes, unless as I said you are a big company and can enforce them....
Anyway, thank you so much for keeping calm and reasonable and explaining things so well and so nice. I wish I was more calm but well...sometimes I lose my patience :D
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @Liwott
Its good to see when people genuinely engage in such discussions, and there was a lot of good points explained here. But I can understand why Tio can lose patience very easily. For one he's very busy with his work, and he does a lot of stuff, so he's more busy than most people. And the other thing is that I'm sure pretty sure Tio has had this exact conversion before, with different people. This is something I've experienced myself after joining TROM's chatroom, different people coming in and asking the same questions, and so we have to individually explain to these people how it is and everything, so many repeated conversations. This can get boring real quick, now imagine going through that for a whole decade, LMAO 😂
... Show more...I remember asking Tio to be less ranty and stuff, but after engaging in these discussions myself and experiencing first hand how exhausting it
@Tio @Liwott
Its good to see when people genuinely engage in such discussions, and there was a lot of good points explained here. But I can understand why Tio can lose patience very easily. For one he's very busy with his work, and he does a lot of stuff, so he's more busy than most people. And the other thing is that I'm sure pretty sure Tio has had this exact conversion before, with different people. This is something I've experienced myself after joining TROM's chatroom, different people coming in and asking the same questions, and so we have to individually explain to these people how it is and everything, so many repeated conversations. This can get boring real quick, now imagine going through that for a whole decade, LMAO 😂
I remember asking Tio to be less ranty and stuff, but after engaging in these discussions myself and experiencing first hand how exhausting it can be, now I don't say that to him anymore. I try to help by joining these conversations so Tio doesn't have to do everything on his own. But I wish there were more people who properly understands TROM and are able to explain these ideas, currently this is a very much underrated project with just a handful of people behind it.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Yeah it mostly depends on my mood to be honest...these days I was in a very bad mood. A mix of the freacking heat and feeling physically uncomfortable and then my inability to do the work I wanted for TROM II and so on...
I am really nice generally and I do not think I've been the opposite in this discussion, but I do have to admit that I feel like these days I have little patience. It is always good to understand your moods and even broadcast them to others so that they can understand you better.
I spent years and years on fb comments for 2-3 pages, thousands a month probably...having so much patience everyone was telling me they were amazed by that. But this kinda consumed me over the years.
Anyway, trying to be more calm...it is also that this post was a rant more than anything, so I wanted to just write that take it off my chest and move on, but so it happens that in the digital world people can comment haha. This is not a bad thing in general but at times I wish I can disable all comments on some posts. Hm...that can be a great Friendica feature....
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Liwott
in reply to Rokosun • • •Rokosun
in reply to Liwott • •@Liwott
Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about this discussion in particular, so this wasn't directed at you. I'd say this is actually one of the better conversations we've had, because you were also explaining some good points without loosing patience, and at least for me (who's relatively new to this project) this wasn't a repeated conversation. But when Tio brought up this thing about patience I just wanted to say this, because I don't know how many people know it but discussions like these are very common around TROM. So even though I don't wanna discourage people from having these conversations, its good to have an understanding of the situation. So when Tio is frustrated with TROM II and because of the heat, he can't have a conversation like he normally would.
Also I wouldn't say we reduced the whole thing to his ability to remain patient, we just went off-topic that's all 🤷
@Tio
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •I think you have to get used with people having honest conversations with you. That's what we try to do and we try to expose our "weaknesses" if there are any. It can be a "weakness" to have the same conversations for many times, it gets you tired. You should appreciate our honesty rather than getting pissed off at that. And understand us better.
That being said, the conversation is not about what is "legal" since that changes from month to month and it is not something I would ever consider as relevant to discuss about. Laws are man-made rules. Inventions. We talk here about the confusion of word
... Show more...I think you have to get used with people having honest conversations with you. That's what we try to do and we try to expose our "weaknesses" if there are any. It can be a "weakness" to have the same conversations for many times, it gets you tired. You should appreciate our honesty rather than getting pissed off at that. And understand us better.
That being said, the conversation is not about what is "legal" since that changes from month to month and it is not something I would ever consider as relevant to discuss about. Laws are man-made rules. Inventions. We talk here about the confusion of wording when it comes to the use of "free" and how what we understand by being free is being sucked under the gravity force of trade, making the concept a mere smokescreen that lure people into trading without them understanding that.
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Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Isn't the conversation about software licenses? A software license is defined as a legal tool. Of course it only makes sense in a legal context.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Yes, in this world, you have to trade just to ensure that your rights are being respected.
This does not make the rights in question nonsensical, but on the opposite it strengthen the need to fight for them.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •It does make them nonsensical as explained over and over again:
To me, from this reasons, they are nonsensical, meaning they make no sense.
Liwott
in reply to Rokosun • • •I agree. That is precisely why I wouldn't call something "nonsensical" just because we think it may be useless in a trade-free society.
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Tio
in reply to Liwott • •And yet I do call them nonsensical for the reasons I explained in detail in these comments. I see no sense in licensing.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio
So @Liwott you mentioned that if someone doesn't apply a copyright to their works then it'll automatically become restricted. This is actually true but it wasn't always like it, in the past it used to be so that anything you create will automatically be part of open domain (ie, anyone can use it for whatever purposes) unless you manually go and apply a copyright to your work to restrict it. But later they changed the law to make it so that every work you make, from the moment of creation it becomes automatically copyright restricted. And I believe this change in law is what inspired people to create permissive licenses like creative commons. I recommend you watch this short video they made because it explains all of these - creativecommons.org/about/vide…
... Show more...@Tio
So @Liwott you mentioned that if someone doesn't apply a copyright to their works then it'll automatically become restricted. This is actually true but it wasn't always like it, in the past it used to be so that anything you create will automatically be part of open domain (ie, anyone can use it for whatever purposes) unless you manually go and apply a copyright to your work to restrict it. But later they changed the law to make it so that every work you make, from the moment of creation it becomes automatically copyright restricted. And I believe this change in law is what inspired people to create permissive licenses like creative commons. I recommend you watch this short video they made because it explains all of these - creativecommons.org/about/vide…
So now the important thing is, why did they change the law? And why did copyright even become a thing in the first place? This idea that you could somehow own information and have the right to restrict it. This is where trade comes in, because if you look at the bigger picture then all of it happened because of our trade based society. So here's the situation:
You mentioned this as to why licenses are necessary:
Yes this is the point of licensing, and I'm not saying its useless. But ask yourself why you're afraid that the creator would sue you?
Because this is a real thing that happens, there are people who make a lot of money from this and they're called "Copyright trolls" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyrigh…
So these are people who abuse the copyright law for their own trade benefit, and they're more common than you might think. So this fear you have that the creator would sue you, its not an irrational fear, and its again directly or indirectly created because of trade. So in this trade based society where you can't really trust anyone (because anyone could be a charlatan, a copyright troll in this case), you need a legal statement from someone saying that they allow their work to be modified, because their words simply aren't enough.
Why do people constantly have this fear that others are there to take advantage of their work? Because the unfortunate truth is that this is a norm in our trade based society. So I think this is what Tio meant when he said that copyright laws are a result of traumatized humans.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Where is that true? And if it is then it is purely retardation. Won't be surprised and won't accept it anyway. People should do stuff and move on. Anything else is a reaction due to this trade based society or their ugly upbringing.
And great job at explaining what I was also trying to explain. You have more patience :D
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @Liwott
I linked to this video on my above post, and it explains this change in law - creativecommons.org/about/vide…
I know you don't care about any of these BS copyright laws, you don't have any issue with others sharing your works. But whether you like it or not, according to our current legal system you are considered as an author and you reserve all rights to your works, whatever you wanna do with those rights 🤷
I actually don't know what we could do to make our work public domain these days, most people go with creative commons licenses because it can be used to enforce certain things, say if you wanna prevent people from trading your works then you can do that too. Copyright law was initially invented to restrict and trade information, but copyleft licenses like creative commons, GPL, etc are like a hack we can use to do the opposite, to permit sharing and prevent trading.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •That video is 20 years old. Do you have anything more recent?
I am "considered" haha. Ok. Not going to care about what am I considered. I am not an "author", I just write stuff. Are you an author for writing these big posts? Do you own the right to your posts now or how does that go? These things are such a waste of time I swear...
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio
That video is where I learned this from, and its an official video explaining why they started the creative commons license. But if you want more recent info then I'm sure you can easily find that, I think @Liwott shared a Wikipedia link before that had more info on the legal status of unlicensed work.
And BTW, I do agree that these are a waste of time, its stupid for us to argue about who "owns" certain information, these things are only relevant in a trade based society. In a sane society people would consider these things unnecessary.
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Liwott
in reply to Rokosun • • •I also linked the Belgian government (as I am Belgian), in general one can scrape each government's website to see what applies in each country.
In the meantime I also found a more specific Wikipedia page, which clearly states that it is the case in all countries that ratified the Berne convention, that is most countries.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •I think you may have understood now that a licence is not an enforcer but rather a legal protection against copyright's enforcers. Most of them offer that protection only in limited cases.
Let me ask you : is there a difference in content between your trade-free label and the Unlicense? Formally, the unlicense has the advantage of being explicit. If one is unfamiliar with your website and sees the trade-free logo on another page, they won't get what the label means.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Of course it is an enforcer. It says you can only do this and that with the code. Let's try not to go in circles here. Licenses DO say you can ONLY do this or that with the software. In that sense, yes it reinforces rules as to what you are allowed or not to do.
... Show more...Yes. Trade-Free is an idea to promote a concept. An educational movement, not a license. It is to highlight the bad effects of trading a good/service. Unlicense is a "license" with legal bounding en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlicens… - you can even sell an Unlicensed piece of software. That is the opposite of it being trade-free.
Of course it is an enforcer. It says you can only do this and that with the code. Let's try not to go in circles here. Licenses DO say you can ONLY do this or that with the software. In that sense, yes it reinforces rules as to what you are allowed or not to do.
Yes. Trade-Free is an idea to promote a concept. An educational movement, not a license. It is to highlight the bad effects of trading a good/service. Unlicense is a "license" with legal bounding en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlicens… - you can even sell an Unlicensed piece of software. That is the opposite of it being trade-free.
That's why we link to trade-free.org/ for more context and we work on making it more clear. It is a new idea. We work on a documentary about this entire thing.
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Sorry for insisting in this subthread, but I would want to understand better what the trade-free label entails, as it is not that clear to me from the website.
No, they say can do this or that with the software. I know I said it already, but I think you missed a subtlety in a previous comment of mine : if there are two licenses, you can choose which one to apply.
Let me go on with a (limited, but I think very clear) pie analogy.
You cannot have free applepie with a voucher for illimited pearpie, but if you have both vouchers for illimited applepie and pearpie you can have free applepie. So the pearpie voucher is not restricting you to only pearpie.
(edit: got confused with the apples and pears 😅)
... Show more...Do you mean th
Sorry for insisting in this subthread, but I would want to understand better what the trade-free label entails, as it is not that clear to me from the website.
No, they say can do this or that with the software. I know I said it already, but I think you missed a subtlety in a previous comment of mine : if there are two licenses, you can choose which one to apply.
Let me go on with a (limited, but I think very clear) pie analogy.
You cannot have free applepie with a voucher for illimited pearpie, but if you have both vouchers for illimited applepie and pearpie you can have free applepie. So the pearpie voucher is not restricting you to only pearpie.
(edit: got confused with the apples and pears 😅)
Do you mean that one cannot sell a piece of software that was obtained trade-free? So the label allows you to do what you want under the condition that it is not used for trade? Makes me think about the anti-capitalist software license.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •We will endlessly go in circle with this. IF you have a train that goes from siberia to berlin, in a world without borders, then that's great. You go, no restrictions. Now someone comes and invent borders and do not allow border crossing freely. And so others invent VISAs. VISAs allow you to go from one tribe to another, so to travel you now need VISAs now, while before it was free.
Some are saying VISAs are a positive thing, they allow you to travel from one country to another. Hurray! However they are seen like that simply because the "default" state (that of borders and restrictions) is, well, restrictive. VISAs are in fact restrictions. You are only allowed to this or that tribe, if you do this or that. Hope that made it a tiny more clearer.
Licenses are like VISAs, they look as if they give you freedoms, while in fact they restrict the use of the software that should have been free anyway (digital, endless copies, remember!?). Like travel should.
... Show more...We will endlessly go in circle with this. IF you have a train that goes from siberia to berlin, in a world without borders, then that's great. You go, no restrictions. Now someone comes and invent borders and do not allow border crossing freely. And so others invent VISAs. VISAs allow you to go from one tribe to another, so to travel you now need VISAs now, while before it was free.
Some are saying VISAs are a positive thing, they allow you to travel from one country to another. Hurray! However they are seen like that simply because the "default" state (that of borders and restrictions) is, well, restrictive. VISAs are in fact restrictions. You are only allowed to this or that tribe, if you do this or that. Hope that made it a tiny more clearer.
Licenses are like VISAs, they look as if they give you freedoms, while in fact they restrict the use of the software that should have been free anyway (digital, endless copies, remember!?). Like travel should.
If you sell a piece of software it is not trade free. That service/product is trade based. If you grab it trade-free and now you are selling it, again that's not trade-free. You are trading the software as simple as that. Don't try to look at trade-free from the lenses of licenses. As I said it is not a license.
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Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Rokosun
in reply to Liwott • •@Liwott
From what I understand Mozilla's VPN is preconfigured to use their own paid servers by default, right? And there is no easy way to just deploy a bunch of self-hosted servers because I think the server code is still proprietary.
If you actually wanted to setup your own VPN service this then you'd be using things like openvpn or wireguard, because these are actual trade-free programs you can use. Nextcloud is comparable to wireguard/openvpn, Mozilla VPN is more similar to this one - github.com/meganz/MEGAsync
... Show more...MEGAsync is the open source client for the cloud service provider MEGA, and its made to work on their own paid servers, no other ones. Of
@Liwott
From what I understand Mozilla's VPN is preconfigured to use their own paid servers by default, right? And there is no easy way to just deploy a bunch of self-hosted servers because I think the server code is still proprietary.
If you actually wanted to setup your own VPN service this then you'd be using things like openvpn or wireguard, because these are actual trade-free programs you can use. Nextcloud is comparable to wireguard/openvpn, Mozilla VPN is more similar to this one - github.com/meganz/MEGAsync
MEGAsync is the open source client for the cloud service provider MEGA, and its made to work on their own paid servers, no other ones. Of course you could say that anyone can fork the code and make it work with self hosted servers, and if someone actually did that then that fork will be trade-free, while the original software will still be trade based. This is an important distinction to make, just because something can be turned into a trade-free software doesn't mean its trade-free in its current form.
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Rokosun likes this.
Liwott
in reply to Rokosun • • •Rokosun likes this.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •Something can be Free Software and yet Trade-Based. Can be open source and you can have the freedom to fork it, but it itself can collect data, insert ads, hide features. The fact that you can fork and remove those trades is another thing, beyond the original software that is trade-based.
Nextcloud doesn't come stacked with their enterprise edition and all sorts of BS that you have to remove. At least not much at all. But making something Free Software does not guarantee it will be trade-free.
like this
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Tio
in reply to Tio • •@Liwott
So that we may end this long and dreadful conversation:
Your argument is that if you put no license on your online content, then it automatically becomes restricted, from a law perspective (at least in certain parts of the world). Meaning, in this case society does not care what the owner wants to do with their work, they force them to make them restricted from the get-go.
This could be true, I do not know. Let's take it as true. Ok.
Then your argument is that licenses are necessary in such a situation since they can allow others to use your content. With a license you have some "freedoms" that result from a default and restrictive situation to begin with. But without a license you are only left with the default restrictions.
In that sense, your argument is that licenses are good because they provide some freedoms.
I hope I got it right.
Now looking at things in this way, I can see how you are interpreting the situation
... Show more...@Liwott
So that we may end this long and dreadful conversation:
Your argument is that if you put no license on your online content, then it automatically becomes restricted, from a law perspective (at least in certain parts of the world). Meaning, in this case society does not care what the owner wants to do with their work, they force them to make them restricted from the get-go.
This could be true, I do not know. Let's take it as true. Ok.
Then your argument is that licenses are necessary in such a situation since they can allow others to use your content. With a license you have some "freedoms" that result from a default and restrictive situation to begin with. But without a license you are only left with the default restrictions.
In that sense, your argument is that licenses are good because they provide some freedoms.
I hope I got it right.
Now looking at things in this way, I can see how you are interpreting the situation as positive in terms of licenses that give you permission to copy, distribute, and so forth.
Now my argument is this:
I totally understand why many good people use licenses so that they can do all of these and protect themselves from future lawsuits too. They are forced. And I argue that this is done because of this trade-based society. If we were not to be traumatized every day by trade, trade, trade, and thus accumulate, own, accumulate more, we would not need any licenses to begin with, especially for digital stuff that can be endlessly replicated. I understand your argument that some may want some sort of “licenses” so that the credits are given to the originator, but I argue that this is not an important driver of how licenses are used overall.
I also say that the work I do is simply there and anyone can use it as they wish. I put no license to it because I fully disagree with how we do things today. I label my work as trade-free, so that no one needs to trade anything with me in order to get what I’ve created. A pure form of free. I understand that from a “legal” standpoint my work is restricted apparently, but not restricted by me (the owner) which is beyond ridiculous; but I give no fucks (to put it mildly). ‘legally” I was not allowed to share my life with Sasha, because of our “visa” issues. Laws are primitive concepts and I refuse to accept them as imposing over my life.
All that being said, licenses are mostly a reaction of a traumatized society, because of trade primarily. And I refuse the concept of any license. Everything we do, we do it in a humane way and ask nothing in return for it.
I do what I do at TROM, the way we do it, and that's the most important thing when it comes to our content. If I made the content, I have a say in what to do with it, not the society. And we say it is trade-free. If people cannot “trust” us from a “legal” perspective simply because we have no “license” attached to this work, then they do not understand TROM anyway and I could not care less.
Is this a fair analysis for you?
Liwott
in reply to Tio • • •Mostly, yes. To this I can add 2 comments.
In most parts of the world, actually.
In practice, nobody imposes anyone to exercise that right. It is just that the right is reserved to the author by default. Someone can legally publish a work, leave everyone do what they want with it for ten years, then start suing everyone for plagiarism.
So, as I explained in a recent comment, licensing a work is not a way to give yourself more freedom, but one of giving a garantee to people wanting to do stuff with it.
Now about your argument
... Show more...Mostly, yes. To this I can add 2 comments.
In most parts of the world, actually.
In practice, nobody imposes anyone to exercise that right. It is just that the right is reserved to the author by default. Someone can legally publish a work, leave everyone do what they want with it for ten years, then start suing everyone for plagiarism.
So, as I explained in a recent comment, licensing a work is not a way to give yourself more freedom, but one of giving a garantee to people wanting to do stuff with it.
Now about your argument
This may be true or not, I don't know. My point is not that it is important wrt trade-based motivations, it is that because of this (and consequences I mentioned), licenses can still make sense in a trade-free world.
I am not certain whether the label counts as a licence. If you state publicly and clearly enough that anyone can use your work, then it amounts to giving them a license I think.
When I talk about license-free, understand free of license and label. If you put your work online without any statement on whether people can use it, then you keep your right of accusing them of stealing it. To take your pie analogy (I know copying is not theft, but I think you will understand what the analogy means) : if I see a pie with a "free pie" note and take a bite, nothing happens; if I see a pie with nothing written and take a bite, I can be accused of stealing that bite.
My point above is not about the people not understanding your point, it is about them not believing that their approach is genuine. If you want, it is about people so traumatized by trade that they cannot believe right away that your trade-free approach is genuine. Licensing your work can give them some garantee so that they can embrace the trade-free approach without having to bet on your good faith.
Tio
in reply to Liwott • •True, but that "right" is added by default to your work. Which I think is not a good practice.
But online there can be no theft. Only copying. That's why I find these approaches "nonsensical". No one can steal your work. The only (or at least main) reason that people are bothered by that is as we explained: trade. They can lose their trading advantage if their work is attributed to others that are making a profit off of it. At times can be an issue of the owner not wanting their work to be attributed to others, I get that, but as I said before that is likely not a huge force behind this entire situation.
... Show more...The analogy cannot work for
True, but that "right" is added by default to your work. Which I think is not a good practice.
But online there can be no theft. Only copying. That's why I find these approaches "nonsensical". No one can steal your work. The only (or at least main) reason that people are bothered by that is as we explained: trade. They can lose their trading advantage if their work is attributed to others that are making a profit off of it. At times can be an issue of the owner not wanting their work to be attributed to others, I get that, but as I said before that is likely not a huge force behind this entire situation.
The analogy cannot work for digital stuff. It is more like if you come across a pie recipe and you take a photo of it to make the pie at home. Even if the pie recipe doesn't have a sign saying: you can take a photo and make your own pie. Anyway....digitally all is different. When you publish something on a public website, you...well...publish publicly. Accept search engines to crawl and index your site and all that. It is like putting your apple pie on a public dinner table where you know everyone came to eat, and you expect others to eat your pie too.
You can take it that way too, but since we always mention our stuff is trade-free and make it obvious, then whoever knows about TROM knows about that too.