Moglen on Social Justice and OSS 336
NewsCloud writes "What does Firefox have to do with social justice? How will the one laptop per child project discourage genocide? How soon will Microsoft collapse? Watch Eben Moglen's inspiring keynote from the 2006 Plone Conference (Archive.org: mp3 or qt; or YouTube). The video presentation is ordinary, so the mp3 is an equally good format. 'If we know that what we are trying to accomplish is the spread of justice and social equality through the universalization of access to knowledge; If we know that what we are trying to do is build an economy of sharing which will rival the economies of ownership at every point where they directly compete; If we know that we are doing this as an alternative to coercive redistribution, that we have a third way in our hands for dealing with long and deep problems of human injustice; If we are conscious of what we have and know what we are trying to accomplish, when this is the moment for the first time in lifetimes, we can get it done.'"
Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:4, Insightful)
The "one laptop per child" mentality is great at giving people the information that they need in order to succeed, but it will not make them succeed. It will ensure that everyone starts the race at the same point, but it will not make everyone a winner.
Interesting, but a little too high brow for me (Score:3, Insightful)
The blogger's summary said the speech evoked "memories for me of Martin Luther King's speeches". Ummm
Video Format (Score:5, Insightful)
Delusional (Score:4, Insightful)
re: Salvation through education (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, however, I think the more people who can get around the controlled press with these devices, and blog and create their own content, the better off the world is. It's salvation...no.
Genocide? (Score:5, Insightful)
A bunch of laptops to some starving, poor, thirsty people who live in terror of their government or paramilitary groups the government can't control are going to do a whole freaking lot.
Please.
Re:Economy of sharing-an example (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:4, Insightful)
The 'economy of ownership' is the one where people say 'This stuff is mine! Give me money or you can't use it, even if it costs me nothing for you to have it.
The 'economy of sharing' is where people say 'This stuff can't, or shouldn't be owned at all. If anyone wants to use it, they can and if anyone wants to help improve it, bonus!'
The commons notoriously has problems with things like overgrazing and overfishing, and the notion of sharing what you produce has problems if it costs you something to share. With digital goods shared on the internet, neither of those are a problem. Software doesn't wear out, and it doesn't cost me anything if two people share my work over a website or p2p network. The fixed costs associated with creating free software in the first place do have to be covered, but that hasn't been a problem so far.
The internet works with a different set of economic rules from the traditional economy. Stuff like Linux and Apache are economic equivalent of bumblebees. They shouldn't work under the old rules, yet they do.
And because of that, the ethical rules should change too, but they haven't, yet. In a world where Ubuntu and OpenBSD can be made without having policemen to stop them being copied, why should we employ policemen and jails to prevent Windows or OSX being copied? Jailing people is violent and evil, m'kay, and should only ever be used as a last resort. The primary justification for employing copyright protections in the first place was just to produce copyrighted works - if the works are now getting made without those protections, then there's no excuse for attacking and threatening people just to make an equivalent work that might compete with it...
Umm, I think that's Moglen's point, more or less. I'm still waiting for the *cough*quicktime*cough* movie to download...
Re:Genocide? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and the potshot "that the government of the United States chooses to ignore" is complete bullshit. The world (as am I) is already mad enough at the US for intervening where it should not have, why would the rest of the world be happy if the US went to war because of some video some kid posted on youtube? Futhermore, the US isn't the only one ignoring genocide. While the US is doing nothing in places like Darfur, the EU is doing next to nothing.
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:4, Insightful)
As you can see: We are giving for completely uneconomic reasons all the time. Does that make us bad people?
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong. You are describing a communist system, where wealth is distributed evenly, rather than according to how much each person is worth.
That's not open-source. To me, there is a huge difference with open-source: It is specifically about acknowledging how much something is worth, giving credit where it's due, and respecting the wishes of the authors. Thus, if you build something on top of what I have built, and I have shared it, all I ask is that you share it too. There is nothing in open-source that says that if you build something from scratch, you absolutely must open-source it. Only if you use parts of what other people did. Frankly, I think that's a reasonable request.
What it means is that it's more efficient than traditional innovation, because it means not having to re-invent the wheel. All we ask is that you open your code, too. You're perfectly free to not use what someone else did, but it would be re-doing a lot of work, so I don't recommend it.
You're only obligated if you are using something someone else did. Again, how is this not reasonable? If you're going to go and sell some code you wrote, but it includes a bunch of code I wrote, and I stated originally that I'd prefer you to share your code if you use it, then you're not inherently obliged to, you're obliged to according to the license agreement that you chose to comply with.
Absolutely. However, the hope is that it will, in total, create more winners. Or at least even out the distribution of winners over the globe. Right now there is a serious imbalance in the world that is making it a very unhealthy place to live. We can't just keep giving money to developing countries, hoping that they'll invest it properly and fix all their economic problems. Instead, this is an attempt to help them help themselves, a much better approach IMHO.
Anyways, notice that the OLPC project isn't exactly a charity. It is an effort to create a machine that is useful, but made in such a way that the target demographic can actually afford it. This is perfectly moral from a capitalist perspective. (Yes it is a non-profit organization, but as far as I'm concerned that doesn't change anything. They are still selling the machines, not giving them away.)
More Columbia Rubbish (Score:1, Insightful)
stop the socialism (Score:3, Insightful)
The self-importance is awe inspiring (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source (or Free, or whatever the f*ck) software is fanstastic, but Jesus, can we have a little perspective please?
Except for the 'Social Justice' theme... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What a gasbag (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:1, Insightful)
I've no idea how it will play out, or which scenario is optimal for technological progress in the long run, but most of the original work which open-source has copied was developed with industrial funding. Moreover, there aren't really any examples of open source taking on the sort of platform leadership role Microsoft, Intel and others have done on the PC since the mid-1980s (ie basically guiding the evolution of the platform).
If we start to see open-source software take on the sort of role traditionally filled by Microsoft, eg partnering with Intel and other large hardware vendors to drive development of a PC (or similar) platform, I'll agree that software copyrights aren't needed to ensure technological progress. In the mean time, Linux is a long way away from being anything even remotely like that, even if it is reasonably good at reacting to the platform developed by Microsoft, Intel, et al. Linux users are in a sense actually free-riders, benefiting from Microsoft's platform development investment (but perhaps paying for the contributions of Intel and others).
To some extent, I think it's comparable to writing. A lot of people write for free, but that doesn't mean getting rid of copyright for academic publications wouldn't cause serious problems for students. The wider availability of existing textbooks and derivative works would provide a short-run benefit to education, but in the longer run, the industry's economic profit would be negative, and thus resources now devoted to producing textbooks would be moved to other activities. A lot of textbooks, particularly at the undergraduate level, simply wouldn't be written, and education would suffer as a result.
Re:Economy of sharing-an example (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans have spent millions of years sharing, and just a few thousand owning. Sharing is what got us, as a species, so rich that we could afford to lock up resources, whether it cost anyone anything for others to use them or not.
Owning can speed up the pace of innovation by several orders of magnitude, but it can also slow it down. You don't need DMCA, DRM, and other insane intellectual property rights to do that. The medieval guilds in Europe, for instance, also slowed down the pace of innovation by a couple of centuries, and they did it using trade secrecy rules that worked just as well (or badly, depending on your point of view).
But the important thing is that sharing and owning are NOT mutually exclusive. Buddha had it right: it's the balance that's important. Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to own the ones and the zeroes, but sharing everything absolutely equally doesn't work well outside of a monastery either. The balance point, for me, is where you have the most innovation that benefits the most people and allows compensation to flow to the creators, not everybody except the creators.
One thing that's always brought up about "sharing economies" is the tragedy of the commons. That's where resources held in common and owned by nobody get trashed because nobody takes care of them. Our current environmental problems fall into this category. But the thing to remember there is that sharing only becomes a tragedy when it's a free-for-all. In that case, sure, it's a rip-off for whoever is the biggest thug. We don't have to let that happen. If the commons is adequately regulated, it can be used by everyone AND retain all its value, like a well-run city park.
Moglen has articulated the value in the new / old way of sharing, and brought so many separate things into one vision, it's like looking into a prism and seeing glorious rainbows. Love it.
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but you see, the ability to do this, i.e. to practice charity, which is the moral way of life, is in many ways dependent upon having the resources to give, which in turn is dependant upon a healthy free market economy. Obviously, you can be just as moral without any resources, but there is dramatically more that you can do for others if you do have resources. I think that Open Source is largely a result of this spirit. However, it is a result, not a cause, and I think it has exactly NOTHING to do with most the ideals mentioned, such as Justice. Justice has more to do with the free market. Charity is about rising above justice.
Re: Salvation through education (Score:2, Insightful)
And being the most powerful nation in the world somehow invalidates that sentiment?
Education *is* the salvation, our very history is proof of that. But there is also a strong tradition of anti-intellectualism masquerading as anti-elitism in this country, and as our wealth encourages laziness and the expectation of success, that sentiment is now the stronger force. The failure of throwing money at a problem as a substitute for interest and participation, and actually understanding the problem, does not invalidate the solution.
Re:Genocide? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hahah (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but a little too high brow for me (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's worth keeping in mind that the speech we all listened to was an invited keynote address at the Plone Conference in Seattle. [plone.org] His audience was a bunch of free-software experts (Plone [wikipedia.org] is a FLOSS content management system). Making his talk 'more general and accessible' would have bored the audience. The intention of the talk was to remind some free-software developers of the 'why' of free software, and to encourage them to 'keep at it' because they are part of something good and something that can really help the world.
So again, keeping in mind the context I think it was a very good speech and very well-targetted. Admitedly you can't just show this video to someone who has never heard of Free Sofware (there are too many obscure references, acronyms, etc.), but that wasn't the point. For many slashdotters, however, I imagine the content hits very close to home and was quite interesting. I enjoyed it, at any rate.
Access to what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too much of what you find on the Internet is garbage. From the web page equivalents of open mike poetry nights at the local coffee house, to vacuumheads like 9/11 or moon landing conspiracy theorists, there's a lot of rubbish.
Will the network spread truth and liberty, or will the lies just spread faster? Is it a tool of freedom, or a global generator of intelletual smog?
Here's how you save the world:
1. Global education with a solid core of scientific method, basic logic and critical thinking skills.
2. Free access to all known forms off birth control.
3. Bust up the organized religions. Seriously, we have GOT to wean humanity off that shit. It's like every problem in the world can be traced back to some religious text or another.
Re:Economy of sharing to compete? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that were true, then how come the world's major religions ( Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism ) asked people to practice charity hundreds or thousands of years before the development of modern free markets?
Re:Except for the 'Social Justice' theme... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time he said 'Social Justice' he fed the perception that Free Software is a communist plot.
Only among those who are already predisposed to do so. Social justice != communism. Moglen can't prevent you from bringing your biases to the table, but he can hope that you will judge his presentation on its merits, and not on the values you attach to words he is using.
yp.
Re:Except for the 'Social Justice' theme... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is only because some people are easily fed "trigger" words or phrases and easily trained to react a certain way whenever they are used. Reasonable people understand that social justice does not equal Communism. During the Cold War and even today these easily trained people are more than willing to turn on their friends, neighbors, and even family because of this fallacious sense of pseudo patriotism.
Re:Social Justice? (Score:1, Insightful)
2) I think that they would thank developers for creating software that works and doesn't cost anything, if they're clued in enough to know that alternatives to proprietary software exist.
Re:The operative word is "economy" (Score:3, Insightful)
Information is a strange beast because it is, once it is created, in principle unlimited, and just the costs of copy are occuring. For a long time the costs of copy were relatively high, because you had to manually copy every information bit. In those days the creation of something was costing you only a tad more than copying it, so the supply was basicly determined by the costs of copy. Middle age monks in Europe actually tried to avoid the impression of creating something new at all cost, and all the scholastics was about rearranging a canon of knowledge and information. To copy the common body of knowledge was one of the most important tasks for a monk.
Then there were the first methods invented to replicate something in several copies: sigils, wood cuts, jigs, molds, etchings (o.k. most of them were invented long before, but seldom used to copy knowledge). Those were the first information processing items where you had an economy of scale: suddenly the cost of creating just another copy was much lower than creating the first one. You still had a very high cost for the creation of the first copy (the master copy, the actual wood cut or etching for instance), but every additional copy was cheap. Creating the master copy was still an artful and creative process, comparable with the actual cost of the creation of the work of art. In those days many artists were actually "master copy creators" by trade. But at this point it actually paid to be a copist, because you were able to create something in demand cheaper than others, because you could use the economics of scale. But still the creator of the work and the copist were often the same person.
But then there was the invention of the printing press. Suddenly the cost of creating the master copy was getting considerably lower, because you could assemble it from prefactured parts. The initial cost then was mostly paid by setting up the printshop itself, independent from the information you wanted to copy. Suddenly even the process of creating the master copy was disattached from the actual process of creation of a work of art. So at this point there was an incentive to create a "common pricing" for works of art completely independent from the actual cost of copy, because the owner of the printing press need something to feed into it to get it paid off by selling the copies. This was also the time when the idea of copyright was born, mostly as a way to fight off competitors for the own printing press. Everyone else selling the same work of art would have limited your own ability to recurr your costs. There was the treat of mutual destruction between the printshops: Are you printing mine, I'll print yours, and sell it cheaper. Giving the actual creators some rights to their own works thus was in the very interest of the printing press owner and treating the competitor with the shutdown of the printshop for the violation of it was a sharp weapon to keep most printing press owners faithfully for most of the time, and until today the "printing press owners" are the fiercest combattants for stronger copyrights.
Today everyone can (in general) create a copy of any information completely on his own, because even the cost of generating the master copy is fastly approaching zero. With scanners, photocopiers, burners, computers and the thorough digitalizing of any information you can get information in any form you like, and you are instantly able to create a master copy which in turn can be copied without limit. Today everyone is a print
Re:Great presentation (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't. That's not the best browser, that's a maybe a more technically compliant browser than some, but it's not the best.
It's gotten so bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in the Great U.S. and A. we're seeing a level (by percentage, yes) of poverty that would have made the victims of the Great Depression nod in recognition. It's not about having enough to eat, it's about having anything like a hope that your children may do better than you. Racism, sexism, religious fanatisim are all nothing compared to the daily damage done by the twisted notions of Ronald Reagan Free Market Radicals, who use all sorts of fancy theory to rationalize watching their fellow man go needy.
I used to think it was about greed. That it was pure desire for self-engorgement that drove these miserable characters. But the longer I watch the parade of pigs, generation after generation of bottomless pits that grasp upon some academic lickspittle like Milton Friedman in order to feel a little better about themselves, the more I'm starting to think that it's something much uglier than simple greed. I'm starting to believe they really need, in a deep, dark part of their being, they need to see other people suffer. It's not enough for them to win - they have to see someone else lose. Then they'll stand up on their little self-made pedestals and talk about this great, Christian Country that we live in.
I remember a few months ago, the younger brother of Rush Limbaugh - David I think is his name - on a conservative radio show talking about those despicable socialist democrats. I remember a gentleman who from his accent was calling from south of the Mason-Dixon, making a very strong case for the teachings of Christ being driven by a desire to help the poor, and, I quote: "It makes sense that the biggest horses pull the heaviest load" (he was referring to the notion that the rich ought to be paying more taxes than the poor). Ol' David Limbaugh corrected him of course, saying that there were many places in the Bible that were in favor of the kind of self-serving capitalism we practice in this country. "Can you give me an example?" the caller asked. There was a momentary pause, then the host broke in to announce some commercials. It was the kind of moment when you realize that there's an America that these media big mouths have no idea of, an America that still understands that we are all in this together.
And before you tell me that "the rich are paying a larger percentage of taxes than ever before", I've done the research: It's only because the rich have increased their income by such an enormous degree that of course they're paying more. It's because they're making so bloody much more than they ever have before that even the tiny amount they deign to pay at tax time adds up to a tremendous amount.
The next time someone tells you that the top 5 percent of Americans are paying 50 percent of the taxes, remember, it's because they're making 90 percent of the money.
Remember it too, every time you hear that Barack Obama, or AL Gore, or whoever ends up running for president from the Democratic Party, is "nothing but a Socialist".
Re:Conflation or truthiness? (Score:3, Insightful)
Until 1477, that is. After that copyright was viable because owning a printing press was a huge investion, and it had to pay off. Ok. Some very rich people might have had a printing press purely for fun, and some revolutionaries were having them for completely different reasons. But in general people owning a printing press had somehow to conduct a business with it, and thus they were vulnerable as soon as they put their products to the public. Ever noticed that all traditional versions of copyright always make a difference between a "private copy" and a "public copy"? They may name it differently (Fair Use, or Not for Profit or whatever), but in the end the intention is always the same: As long as the copy stays private and doesn't have too much impact to the public, it is mainly tolerated, because otherwise one would have intrude into the privacy of people to detect copyright infringment.
But it wasn't necessary. Not licensed prints were (relatively) easily to detect on public markets, and with making the marketing of counterfeit copies hard, it was possible to keep the copyright infringment relatively low and maintenable, because it didn't pay off economically.
But with the "everyone is printing press owner" the economic need to go public with the output of the printing press has vanished. So you can't tackle copyright infringment anymore by making it hard to sell the copy in public. For the first time in history you have to stop the actual process of making the copy itself, because otherwise the damage is already done. For the first time in history you have to infringe on privacy to keep copyright alive. And I don't know if Adam Smith (who first stated that the limited exclusive right to the own ideas may be a tradeoff that is worthwile because it is an incentive to create), or later on the Founding Fathers would have been so fond about Copyright if they had known that you have to trade both free markets and privacy for copyright to enforce it.
Why I have an allergic reaction to 'social justice (Score:4, Insightful)
The term seems to suggest that if A has sufficiently greater wealth than B, the situation is 'socially unjust', without considering the actions that led to the situation. If the disparity of wealth is due to A having worked harder to produce his wealth, it would be the antithesis of justice to 'correct' the imbalance by coercive force.
It's good that you use scare quotes there, because politically-connected people using their connections to gain advantage in the market is not what I call "capitalism"; it's more like "mercantilism". But consider this: The nations with the poorest citizens are precisely those where coercive force dominates economic transactions; those where the lowest economic classes do the best are where force (and the threat thereof) is kept to a minimum.We did an experiment last century, where we divided a country between capitalism and socialism. In order to maintain the experiment, the subjects in the socialist part of the experiment had to be confined by a wall, manned by guards with orders to kill anyone who tried to get out. But, hey, as long as all the inmates are equally poor, it's 'Social Justice', right?
The 'poor' under the definition of 'poverty' in the US of A would be considered wealthy in any country on the planet a century ago. By embracing 'social justice', you can feel smug about spreading misery equally.I am a proponent of Free Software precisely because it's about freedom. The pursuit of 'social justice' by coercive force is incompatible with freedom.
BTW, wasn't Moglen wearing a NICE suit? I don't suppose Starvin' Marvin can afford a fancy lawyer suit like that.
Because everything else is a RAM hog (Score:3, Insightful)
What if I want Firefox for an architecture with a small amount of RAM? What other web browser runs on plenty of handheld devices?
Re:Why I have an allergic reaction to 'social just (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why I have an allergic reaction to 'social just (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's gotten so bad... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. And I believe we have also hit a low point as a society when "free market" is also a dirty word. Free market has never meant a lawless market, but people like you still describe it as if it is a den of thieves. The free market is a place were people can come to exchange goods and services without the threat of coercion by force, it is a place were government will enforce equitable contracts made willingly and in good faith with the use of force. Ideally, it is also a place were the exchange of goods and services take place without regard to biases individuals might have against other individuals or perceived groups. Historically, free markets have been places were individuals have been able to come in order to better themselves through hard work and reputations for honesty. A free market is not incompatible with a concept social justice. The "free" in free market is free as in freedom.
The next time someone tells you that the top 5 percent of Americans are paying 50 percent of the taxes, remember, it's because they're making 90 percent of the money.
The rich pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than do any other so called group. What you just said is a lie, pure and simple. A lie meant to divide people. A lie meant to assuage the guilt of the poor for taking more than they are worth from others. A lie meant to enslave the middle class. A lie that is so obviously false that you should be ashamed of yourself for spreading it.
Oh you meant to say wealth, sure you did. But wealth is not income, wealth is a made up number. Wealth is me looking at your house and saying that I bet someone would pay a lot for it. Wealth is not income, wealth does not always generate income. But when wealth does generate income it is already taxed at very high rates. So, you say that 40% is too little, that taking nearly half of people's income is too little? How much is too much?
I have been keenly aware of the false numbers that you and your kind have been spreading on the Internet. People are overtaxed and overworked and you would justify their continued oppression by spreading false rumors and lies. The rich and the middle class pay more than their fair share while the poor pay nothing or very little.
Yes, there is an inequity in this country and it is this: That the political class would prey upon the weak to better themselves. That the political class would scare people into giving them more power and control over other people's lives. That the political class would conspire between the two parties and act as one single unified political machine seeking to enrich their co-conspirators at the expense of the poor, rich and middle classes alike.