Well, it was time to add something new. My outside blog is where I post most stuff like this, but in the interest of semi-anonymity, I usually don't talk about anything outside of slashdot here. Makes for a boring log, tho.

I'm worse at checking this thing than I am my web site, which is to say that I'm not good at it. I think I have too many journals.

If you have anything to say to me, say it here and maybe I'll notice :)

So some people modded me down for an offtopic post marked Off Topic in the subject where there was a thread on some guy's incorrect sig... twice.

Like they were expecting an on-topic post :P

Sigh - yeah, I know, Slashdot says keep posts on topic, which I usually do, but hey - in context to what? I was on topic in context of the other guy's post :)

I found it odd that in the past month I've received mod points 3 times, and hadn't been given any in about 4 months... and none of my recent posts have modded either way and I only meta-moderated once.

Bizarre.

Ah well, better go spend the latest batch.

On this day, I consecrate my journal.

I'm not exactly sure why, but it needed to be done - and it certainly is more entertaining than watching Install Shield installing components of another product I have to have tested by the Monday before last.

Yawn. I hate working overtime weekends on boring projects. Well, enough yammering, the install is done. Back to work.

I hate journals. But I hate seeing messages whining about my not having a journal even more. Hence, this is now a journal about hating journals.

(1) I hate journals because it's assumed that what you write in them is what you were thinking at the time. Nobody ever really writes what they're thinking, they write what they recall or can express about what they were thinking. So, this isn't the hatred of journals, it's a pale shadow of that hatred.

(2) I don't really hate journals, but I had to write about something.. and making a list of the ways one can hate journals might be fun.

Earlier this week I complained about how it's become popular to throw a political spin on every Slashdot article, no matter how irrelevant the connection. This article illustrates that point perfectly. They took what could be a perfectly good story, and subsequent discussion, about a new audio format and turned it into a free-for-all on the evils of watermarking and how Sony is an enemy of fair use.

(Since when does Fair Use entitle you to a perfect digital copy of the source material, anyway? You can exercise your right of fair use by hooking right up to the analogue audio outputs on your CD player.)

I don't want to write another rant about how Slashdot is depressingly political. I just wanted to point out an example of exactly what's pissing me off this week.

I've about had it with Slashdot's political bent. In the past year. Slashdot has gone from an site full of links to interesting and fun things to a mess of misinformation about the DMCA, DRM technology, patents, copyrights, and other issues that-- for reasons that escape me-- are fundamentally offensive to a good chunk of the Slashdot audience.

I believe that reasoned political debate is a wonderful thing. I love talking politics with my friends, whether we agree or disagree. Those sorts of conversations always leave be with the sense that I've learned something new, or heard an opinion that I haven't heard before.

But Slashdot is not the place for reasoned political debate. More often than not, the people who post to Slashdot seem to lack even the most basic information about the topic at hand. Instead of reading and listening and learning about significant issues, the Slashdot readership prefers instead to just repeat the same old litanies: DMCA bad, RIAA bad, MPAA bad, DRM bad, MS bad, Linux good, EFF good, RMS good, capitalism = greed, government = corruption, et cetera, et cetera.

A year ago, the solution was easy: I just chose not to see any articles from the "Your Rights Online" section on the front page. Poof. Done.

Now, half the articles, more or less, make reference to one of the collection of alphabet soup I listed above.

I'm tired of this. I've been an active participant on Slashdot for a long time-- I don't remember precisely how long, but I've posted some 1,200 comments, and I maxed out my karma a long time ago-- but I'm just about ready to give it up. I'm just not finding that much on Slashdot that's worth reading any more.

A user named extrasolar made this comment:

This is what my dictionary says "free" means. The following definitions are what the "free" in free software mean:

3. Not controlled by an outside power; autonomous. 4. Not bound by restrictions or regulations: free trade. 9. Not controlled, restricted, or hampered by outside agents or influences. 12. Available to all; open: a free port.

These are some notable definitions that Stallman does not mean by free software:

1. Having personal liberty. 2. Having civil, political, or religious liberty. 15. Given or provided for without charge or cost: free seats.

So the phrase "free software" does mean what he intends it to mean, "unrestricted". Anyone who believes he means definition 1 or 2 in my dictionary, is a fool. If this is propaganda, its rather poor, don't you think?

Also, free software doesn't necessarily mean free of *all* restrictions, which seems to be your only complaint, just as free trade doesn't mean trade without *any* restriction. In both cases, it simply means you are generally not restricted in what you may do. By all accounts, the GPL is an unrestrictive license even if it doesn't allow you to relicense the work. Without the GPL, you wouldn't be able to copy the program, obtain source code, or distribute your own modifications.

My response to it is something I want to remember. I'm posting it here mainly so I can go back and think about this some more later. If you want to discuss it, Constant Reader, be my guest.

So the phrase "free software" does mean what he intends it to mean, "unrestricted".

It can't, though. Because "free software" (i.e., GPL-licensed software) is not unrestricted. Quite the opposite.

Let's run through your definition candidates one by one.

3. Not controlled by an outside power; autonomous.

This is a terrible definition, but it clearly means "free as in having liberty of self-determination." The phrase "not controlled by an outside power" may confuse you until you get to the part where it says, "autonomous." The fridge in our office kitchen is not controlled by an outside power-- clearly, because nobody ever cleans the damn thing-- but it's not autonomous. So it's not appropriate, under this definition, to refer to it as a "free fridge." Same with software. If the source code to software is released and the copyright abandoned, then it's not controlled by an outside power. But it's not autonomous. So the phrase "free software" makes no sense by that definition. That one's out.

4. Not bound by restrictions or regulations: free trade.

I've already covered this one in part by saying that "free software" (i.e., GPL'd software) is just as restricted by licensing terms as any other software, and moreso than some. But there's another problem with this definition, too. In the phrase, "free trade," "trade" is a process, not an object. Same with "free speech." It's a process that is unrestricted by outside forces. It's understood, from that use of the word "free," that the object isn't actually "free" in any meaningful sense, but rather that the participants in the process are. When you say, "free trade exists between Canada and the United States," what you really mean is, "Canada and the United States are free of restrictions in trade."

But "software" isn't a process in Stallman's definition. It's an entity. So "free software," the phrase, has more in common with "free couch" than it does with "free trade."

If you stretch your mind a bit and think of "software" as the act of exchanging source code between individuals, then maybe there's a parallelism to "free trade" here. But we're back to the part about "not bound by restrictions." GPL-licensed software is just as bound by restrictions as any commercial software. So that definition of "free software" is clearly bogus.

9. Not controlled, restricted, or hampered by outside agents or influences.

I've done this one already. "Free software," i.e. GPL'd software, is restricted in its use. Those restrictions include a prohibition of releasing that software under a different software license, and a prohibition of linking that software into a larger software product without releasing the entire larger product under the GPL. They're serious, restrictive prohibitions. The word "free" can't apply there without the definition's being bent so far it's in danger of breaking.

12. Available to all; open: a free port.

Okay, this one is the closest yet to a definition I can accept. "Free software" is free in the sense that a "free port" is free: anybody can use it without paying a fee. I might be able to go along with that.

But this proves my very thesis: out of 15 definitions of "free," some of which weren't listed, only one could possibly be applied in the phrase "free software" without being blatantly incorrect. And the definition that applies is relatively obscure and differs in significant ways from the most common definition. And, furthermore, the definition that applies has more in common with the "zero cost" definition of "free" than with any other definition, which is exactly what Stallman says it doesn't mean.

The use of the phrase "free software" is counterintuitive and misleading. It's a rhetorical technique, called "transfer," to associate oneself with something that the audience accepts as inherently good. If you can get your audience to make that connection in their minds, they're far less likely to consider your argument critically.

By all accounts, the GPL is an unrestrictive license even if it doesn't allow you to relicense the work. Without the GPL, you wouldn't be able to copy the program, obtain source code, or distribute your own modifications.

Um... no. Without the GPL, the software would have no license at all, and would be in the public domain. I would be able to copy it, use its source code, change it, distribute it, do whatever I wanted with it. The GPL artificially restricts my freedom to use the software in the exact same way that any other software license does. The fact that it grants some rights-- which are all fine and dandy, by the way-- doesn't mean that it doesn't restrict others in a significant way.

This entry serves mainly to remind me that I've decided to start a journal. I made this decision based primarily on encouragement from Osty, and a few others.

If you're a friend of mine (in the SlashCode sense I can't promise that this journal will ever go anywhere. I don't know, yet, whether I'll enjoy writing in it enough to take the time. But we'll see what happens.

Oh, one last thing: I want to keep a note of this comment. I wrote some decent things in here, and I'd like to remember to go back and flesh them out sometime soon.