Workshop 0: Future Planning - 14th October

[Leslie I'Anson]

Hello all,

We are pleased to announce that Manchester Free Software are planning
to hold regular workshops in a similar vein to our current monthly
talks.

Our first workshop, entitled "Future Planning", is due to take place
at 19:00 on Wednesday 21st October 2009 at Manchester Digital
Development Agency <http://manchesterdda.com/>.

The first of many workshops, Workshop 0/Zero, is focused around
establishing the group, planning topics for future workshops and
gathering feedback and ideas from the MFS community. Therefore, it
will follow a slightly different format to subsequent workshops and
will include the following:-

  * An introduction to the MDDA.
  * Introductions to the Drupal Users Group, who will be sharing the
space with us.
  * A brief presentation about our ideas and plans for future workshops,
  * followed by an open discussion and brainstorming session.

Following on from Workshop 0/Zero, subsequent Wednesday meetings at
the MDDA will then provide an opportunity to supplement our talks with
practical, "hands on" workshops and tutorials. Two topics that have
already been confirmed for future workshops this year include "Bug
Submission" and "The Web of Trust".

Similar to our talks, workshops are free to attend and open to
everyone. As mentioned previously, workshops are due to start at 19:00
but people will be around from 18:30 onwards. Directions to the MDDA
are available on their website <http://manchesterdda.com/directions/>
and their address is as follows:-

  Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA)
  Lower Ground Floor
  117-119 Portland Street
  Manchester
  M1 6ED

Access to the building is via the doorbell at the entrance and
wheelchair access via the lift  to the left of the main entrance. The
MDDA also provide complimentary tea, coffee and water.

Please reply to the list if you are interesting in attending or
participating in this or future workshops and feel free to
redistribute this information.

Thank you and best wishes,
The MFS Team

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[Leslie I'Anson]

Excellent and thanks for your response.

Leslie

On 16/10/2009, roy.evison@... <roy.evison@...> wrote:

>
> ---- Leslie I'Anson <leslie.ianson@...> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> Thanks, yes I'm interested in attending,
>          Roy Evison.
>> We are pleased to announce that Manchester Free Software are planning
>> to hold regular workshops in a similar vein to our current monthly
>> talks.
>>
>> Our first workshop, entitled "Future Planning", is due to take place
>> at 19:00 on Wednesday 21st October 2009 at Manchester Digital
>> Development Agency <http://manchesterdda.com/>.
>>
>> The first of many workshops, Workshop 0/Zero, is focused around
>> establishing the group, planning topics for future workshops and
>> gathering feedback and ideas from the MFS community. Therefore, it
>> will follow a slightly different format to subsequent workshops and
>> will include the following:-
>>
>>   * An introduction to the MDDA.
>>   * Introductions to the Drupal Users Group, who will be sharing the
>> space with us.
>>   * A brief presentation about our ideas and plans for future workshops,
>>   * followed by an open discussion and brainstorming session.
>>
>> Following on from Workshop 0/Zero, subsequent Wednesday meetings at
>> the MDDA will then provide an opportunity to supplement our talks with
>> practical, "hands on" workshops and tutorials. Two topics that have
>> already been confirmed for future workshops this year include "Bug
>> Submission" and "The Web of Trust".
>>
>> Similar to our talks, workshops are free to attend and open to
>> everyone. As mentioned previously, workshops are due to start at 19:00
>> but people will be around from 18:30 onwards. Directions to the MDDA
>> are available on their website <http://manchesterdda.com/directions/>
>> and their address is as follows:-
>>
>>   Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA)
>>   Lower Ground Floor
>>   117-119 Portland Street
>>   Manchester
>>   M1 6ED
>>
>> Access to the building is via the doorbell at the entrance and
>> wheelchair access via the lift  to the left of the main entrance. The
>> MDDA also provide complimentary tea, coffee and water.
>>
>> Please reply to the list if you are interesting in attending or
>> participating in this or future workshops and feel free to
>> redistribute this information.
>>
>> Thank you and best wishes,
>> The MFS Team
>>
>> --
>> http://www.fsf.org/ Support The Freedom!
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fsuk-manchester mailing list
>> Fsuk-manchester@...
>> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsuk-manchester
>
>

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[Luke Taylor-4]

Some parts of this message have been removed. Learn more about Nabble's security policy.

Michael and Lucy sparked an interesting discussion about how copyright harms free software:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Naturally a copyright of (say) 10 years would mean that Linux 2.0.37 and GCC 2.95.2 and any other free software published more than 10 years ago would have their copylefts expire. RMS suggests that this would be acceptable if proprietary software had to surrender their source if the distribution was more than 10 years old.

Two questions for y'all:

1) Have I understood how this works correctly? Would everything based on Linux 2.0.37 (ie. 2.6.31-15 ) become effectively BSD's or just the older incarnation?

2) Would you oppose a law to reduce all copyright to 15 years (with no clauses forcing proprietary software to surrender the source code)? Yes it would harm free software a bit (Or a lot? I honestly don't know how useful a 15 year old kernel would be to a modern proprietary developer) but think how much culture would be freed! Novels/music/plays/art etc.

3) If your answer to (2) is no, what about 25 years? How many years would you support? I guess that nobody here would support the current regime which is life of the creator plus 70 years. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

Just bouncing ideas around. I definitely don't know enough to form any kind of confident opinions but I am interested in seeing some discussion and seeing what you all think.

Luke

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[sward]

On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:55:57PM +0000, Luke Taylor wrote:
> Naturally a copyright of (say) 10 years would mean that Linux 2.0.37
> and GCC 2.95.2 and any other free software published more than 10
> years ago would have their copylefts expire.

Fair does, it’s in the commons.  It only works if all software is
subject to the same rules though.

> RMS suggests that this would be acceptable if proprietary software had
> to surrender their source if the distribution was more than 10 years
> old.

Whatever the copyright term is, I believe that the source should be
available afterwards.

Copyright allows exclusive right for copying and redistribution of works
for a period of time.  After that the work is in the public domain for
others to reuse and build upon.  Software, especially compiled, becomes
pretty much useless unless you have the source code to work with, so
when the copyright term ends, software may become inaccessible.

> 1) Have I understood how this works correctly? Would everything based
> on Linux 2.0.37 (ie. 2.6.31-15 ) become effectively BSD's or just the
> older incarnation?

Not even BSD license variants: There’s no requirement to keep the
license, or copyright notices with a work that’s out of copyright.

> 2) Would you oppose a law to reduce all copyright to 15 years (with no
> clauses forcing proprietary software to surrender the source code)?

I would welcome it.  Out of copyright is almost free.  The 15 years of
copyright allows reciprocal freedom to be enforced, and is more than
enough time for free works to gain and keep hold.

> Yes it would harm free software a bit

Out of copyright software is free software.  As long as all software is
subject to the same rules, I think it sort of balances out:  Proprietary
software becomes free sooner, already free software loses requirements
for reciprocating freedoms sooner.  This is much better if source code
is available, but if not, software can be reverse engineered.

> (Or a lot? I honestly don't know how useful a 15 year old kernel would
> be to a modern proprietary developer) but think how much culture would
> be freed! Novels/music/plays/art etc.

I think different types of works should be subject to different
copyright terms.

Software changes or loses value so rapidly that a short copyright term
(5 years) would benefit all, and at the same time authors will still be
able to gain from the exclusive copyright.  The incentive to create is
still there.

If you reduce the copyright for written works to the same short term,
there may be not enough incentive for many to create them.

I’d like works to be ultimately free, but somewhere there is a sweet
spot between the amount of good quality works produced and the copyright
term: This is the copyright balance.

> 3) If your answer to (2) is no, what about 25 years? How many years would you support?

Any reduction is better than none.  Baby steps.

If there is an easy and good way to define a major change to software (I
don’t think changes to SLoC (source lines of code) would be a good
measure) I think a very short copyright term, say one or two years,
would be sufficient, with major developments on top of existing software
being afforded a similar short (or shorter) copyright term.

That way, copyright might be used as an incentive not just to create
software, but enhance it too.  This instead of being offered a larger
incentive to reinvent the wheel each time.

Simon
--
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall


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[roy.evison]

I would tend to agree but what two parties set up is between them unless published under particular auspices. Yes software will have a useful, or sellable, life-span but setting parameters may not be useful.If you are a free-lance developer how do you guarantee your income?

Roy.  
---- Simon Ward <simon@...> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:55:57PM +0000, Luke Taylor wrote:
> > Naturally a copyright of (say) 10 years would mean that Linux 2.0.37
> > and GCC 2.95.2 and any other free software published more than 10
> > years ago would have their copylefts expire.
>
> Fair does, it’s in the commons.  It only works if all software is
> subject to the same rules though.
>
> > RMS suggests that this would be acceptable if proprietary software had
> > to surrender their source if the distribution was more than 10 years
> > old.
>
> Whatever the copyright term is, I believe that the source should be
> available afterwards.
>
> Copyright allows exclusive right for copying and redistribution of works
> for a period of time.  After that the work is in the public domain for
> others to reuse and build upon.  Software, especially compiled, becomes
> pretty much useless unless you have the source code to work with, so
> when the copyright term ends, software may become inaccessible.
>
> > 1) Have I understood how this works correctly? Would everything based
> > on Linux 2.0.37 (ie. 2.6.31-15 ) become effectively BSD's or just the
> > older incarnation?
>
> Not even BSD license variants: There’s no requirement to keep the
> license, or copyright notices with a work that’s out of copyright.
>
> > 2) Would you oppose a law to reduce all copyright to 15 years (with no
> > clauses forcing proprietary software to surrender the source code)?
>
> I would welcome it.  Out of copyright is almost free.  The 15 years of
> copyright allows reciprocal freedom to be enforced, and is more than
> enough time for free works to gain and keep hold.
>
> > Yes it would harm free software a bit
>
> Out of copyright software is free software.  As long as all software is
> subject to the same rules, I think it sort of balances out:  Proprietary
> software becomes free sooner, already free software loses requirements
> for reciprocating freedoms sooner.  This is much better if source code
> is available, but if not, software can be reverse engineered.
>
> > (Or a lot? I honestly don't know how useful a 15 year old kernel would
> > be to a modern proprietary developer) but think how much culture would
> > be freed! Novels/music/plays/art etc.
>
> I think different types of works should be subject to different
> copyright terms.
>
> Software changes or loses value so rapidly that a short copyright term
> (5 years) would benefit all, and at the same time authors will still be
> able to gain from the exclusive copyright.  The incentive to create is
> still there.
>
> If you reduce the copyright for written works to the same short term,
> there may be not enough incentive for many to create them.
>
> I’d like works to be ultimately free, but somewhere there is a sweet
> spot between the amount of good quality works produced and the copyright
> term: This is the copyright balance.
>
> > 3) If your answer to (2) is no, what about 25 years? How many years would you support?
>
> Any reduction is better than none.  Baby steps.
>
> If there is an easy and good way to define a major change to software (I
> don’t think changes to SLoC (source lines of code) would be a good
> measure) I think a very short copyright term, say one or two years,
> would be sufficient, with major developments on top of existing software
> being afforded a similar short (or shorter) copyright term.
>
> That way, copyright might be used as an incentive not just to create
> software, but enhance it too.  This instead of being offered a larger
> incentive to reinvent the wheel each time.
>
> Simon
> --
> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
> simple system that works.—John Gall

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