20 KiB
The Copyleft Pandemic
It seems we needed a global pandemic so finally some publishers decided to give open access. I guess we should say… thanks?
In my opinion it was a good +++PR+++ maneuver, who doesn't like companies when they do good? This pandemic has shown its capacity to fortify public and private institutions, no matter how badly they have done their job and no matter these new policies are normalizing surveillance. But who cares, I can barely made a living by publishing books and I have never being involve on government work.
An interesting side effect about this “kind” and temporal openness is about authorship. One of the most relevant arguments in favor of intellectual property (+++IP+++) is the defense of authors' rights to made a living with their work. The utilitarian and labor justifications of +++IP+++ are very clear in that sense. For the former, +++IP+++ laws confers an incentive for cultural production and, thus, for the so-called creation of wealth. For the latter, author's “labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.”
But also in personal-based justifications the author is a primordial subject for +++IP+++ laws. Actually, this justification wouldn't exists if the author doesn't have an intimate and qualitatively distinctive relationship with her own work. Without some metaphysics or theological conceptions about cultural production, this special relation it's difficult to prove---but that is another story.
From copyfight, copyleft and copyfarleft movements a lot of people has arguing that this argument hides the fact that most authors can't made a living whereas publishers and distributors made a lot of profits. Some critics claim governments should give more power to “creators” instead of allowing “reproducers” to do whatever they want. I am not fan of this way of doing things because I think nobody should have more power, including authors, and also because in my world government is synonymous of corruption and death. But diversity of opinions is important, I just hope not all governments are like that.
So between copyright, copyfight, copyleft and copyfarleft defenders there is usually a mysterious assent about producer relevance. The disagreement comes in how this overview about cultural production is or should translate into policies and legislation.
In times of emergency and crisis we are seeing how easily is to “pause” those discussions and laws---or fast track other ones. On the side of governments this again shows how copyright and authors' rights aren't natural laws nor they are grounded beyond our political and economic systems. From the side of copyright defenders, this phenomena makes clear how authorship is an argument that doesn't rely on the actual producers.
There isn't bureaucratic and constitutional way to ignore copyright law so quickly and so broadly without at least one of two elements. Or publishers and distributors were already the copyright holders of all those books---even though they defend +++IP+++ “in favor of” the authors---so it doesn't matter what authors think about it; or these “reproducers” doesn't really care about authors interests---as they so vehemently defend.
Yeah, I would find it very pretentious if some author isn't agree with this temporal openness of her work. But lets not miss the point: either way authors doesn't have any right on their own works and this global pandemic has shown how easily is for publishers and distributors to opt for openness or paywalls… So next time you defend copyright as authors' rights for made a living think twice, only a few have been able to have a livelihood and while you think you are helping them you actually are doing third parties richer.
At the end the copyright holders are not the only ones who defend their interests by addressing the importance of people---in their case the authors, but more generally and secularly the producers. The copyleft holders---a kind of cool copyright holders that hacked copyright laws---also defend their interest in a similar way, but instead of authors, they talk about users and instead of profits they supposedly defend freedom.
There is a huge different between each other, but I just want to denote how they talk about people in order to defend their interests. I wouldn't put them in the same sack if it wouldn't because of two issues.
Some copyleft holders were so annoying by defending Stallman. Dudes, at least from here we don't reduce free software movement to one person, not matter if he is the founder or how smart or important he is or was. Criticizing his actions wasn't a synonymous to throw away what this movement has do---what we have done!---, as a lot of you tried to mitigate the issue: “Oh, but he is not the movement, we shouldn't made a big issue about that.” His and your attitude is the fucking issue. He and you have made very clear how narrow is both guys view. Stallman fucked it up and he was behaving so immaturely by thinking the movement is or was thanks to him---we also have our own stories about his behavior---, why don't just accept that?
But I don't really care about him. For me and the people I work, free software movement is a wildcard that joins efforts related to technology, politics and culture for better worlds. Nevertheless, the +++FSF+++, the +++OSI+++, +++CC+++, and other big copyleft institutions doesn't seem to realize that a plurality of worlds implies a diversity of conceptions about freedom. And even worst, they have made a very common mistake when we talk about freedom: they forgot that “freedom wants to be free.”
Instead of that, they have tried to give formal definitions of software freedom. Don't get me wrong, definitions are a good way to plan and understand a phenomenon. But besides its formality it is problematic make people to attach to your own definitions, mainly when you say the movement is about and for them.
Among all concepts, freedom is actually very tricky to define. How can you delimit a concept in a definition when the concept itself claims the inability of, perhaps, any restraint? It is not that freedom can't be defined---I am actually assuming a definition of freedom---, but about how general and static it could be. If the world changes, if people change, if the world is actually an array of worlds and if people sometimes behave one way or the other, of course the notion of freedom is gonna vary.
In freedom different meanings we can try to reduce its diversity so it can be embed in any context or we could try something else. I dunno, maybe we could made software freedom an interoperable concept that fits each of our worlds or we can just stop trying to get a common principle.
The copyleft institutions I mentioned or many others companies that are proud to support copyleft movement tend to be blind about this. I am talking from my experiences, my battles and my struggles when I decided to use copyfarleft licenses in most part of my work. Instead of having support from representatives of this institutions, I first received warnings: “That freedom you are talking about it isn't freedom.” Afterwards, when I seek infrastructure support, I got refusals: “You are invited to use our code in your server, but we can't provide you hosting because your licenses aren't free.” Dawgs, if I could, I wouldn't look for your help first of all, duh.
Thanks to a lot of Latin Americans hackers and pirates I am little by little building my and our own infrastructure. But I know this help is actually a privilege: for many years I couldn't execute a lot of projects or ideas just because I didn't have access to the technology or tuition. And even worst, I wasn't able to look a wider and more complex horizon without all this learning.
(There is a pedagogical deficiency in free software movement that made people think that by writing documentation and by praising self-taught learning is enough. From my point of view is more the production of a self-image about how a hacker or a pirate should be. Plus, it's fucking scaring when you realize how manly, hierarchical and meritocratic this movement tends to be.)
According to copyleft folks, my notion of software freedom isn't free because copyfarleft licenses avoids people to use software. This is a very common criticism to any copyfarleft license. And it is also a very paradoxical one.
Between free software movement and open source initiative there has been a disagreement about the ought to inherit the same type of license, like the General Public License. For the free software movement this clause ensures that software will be always free. According to the open source initiative this clause is actually a counter-freedom because it doesn't allow people to decide which license to use and also it isn't very attractive for enterprise entrepreneurship. Lets not forget that both sides agrees that the market and its corporations are essential for technology development.
Free software supporters tend to vanish the discussion by declaring open source defenders doesn't understand the social implication of this hereditary clause or that they have different interests and ways to change technology development. So it is kind of paradoxical that these folks see the anti-capitalist clause of copyfarleft licenses as a counter-freedom. Or they don't understand its implications or they don't perceive that copyfarleft doesn't talk about technology development in its insolation, but in its relationship with politics, society and economy.
I won't defend copyfarleft against those criticisms. First, I don't think I should defend anything because I am not saying everyone should grasp our notion of freedom. Second, I have an strong opinion against the usual legal reductionism among this debate. Third, I think we should focus in the ways we can work together, instead of putting attention on what could divide us. Finally, I don't think this criticism are wrong, but incomplete: software freedom definition has inherit the philosophical problem about how we can define and what does it implies the definition of freedom.
That doesn't mean I don't care about this discussion. Actually, it is a topic I have very present because if copyright has put me paywalls for technology and knowledge access, copyleft has put me “licensewalls” with the same effects. So lets take a moment to see how free is the freedom that the copyleft institutions are preaching.
According to Open Source Software & The Department of Defense (+++DoD+++), The +++U.S.+++ +++DoD+++ is one of the biggest consumers of open source. To put it in perspective, all tactical vehicles of the +++U.S.+++ Army employs at least one piece of open source software in its programming. Other examples are the use of Android to direct airstrikes or the use of Linux for the ground stations that operates military drones like the Predator and Reaper.
Before you argue this is a problem about open source software and not free software, you should check it out the +++DoD+++ +++FAQ+++ section. There, they define open source software as “software for which the human-readable source code is available for use, study, re-use, modification, enhancement, and re-distribution by the users of that software.” Does it sound familiar? Of course!, they include +++GPL+++ as an open software license and they even rule that “an open source software license must also meet the +++GNU+++ Free Software Definition.”
This report was publish on 2016 by the Center for a New American Security (+++CNAS+++), a right-wing think tank which mission and agenda are “designed to shape the choices of leaders in the +++U.S.+++ government, the private sector, and society to advance +++U.S.+++ interests and strategy.”
I found this report after I read about how +++U.S.+++ Army scrapped one billion dollars for its “Iron Dome” after Israel refused to share code. I found it interesting that even the so-called most powerful army in the world was disabled by copyright laws---a potential resource for asymmetric warfare. For my surprise this isn't an anomaly.
The intention of +++CNAS+++ report is to convince +++DoD+++ to adopt more open source software because its “generally better than their proprietary counterparts […] because they can take advantage of the brainpower of larger teams, which leads to faster innovation, higher quality, and superior security for a fraction of the cost.” This report has its origins by the “justifiably” concern “about the erosion of +++U.S.+++ military technical superiority.”
Who would think that this could happen to +++FOSS+++? Well, all of us that from this part of the world we have being saying that the type of freedom endorsed by many copyleft institutions it's to wide, counterproductive for its own objectives and, of course, inapplicable for our context because that liberal notion of software freedom relies on strong institutions and the capacity of own property or capitalize knowledge. The same ones which have being trying to explain that the economic models they try to “teach” us doesn't work or we doubt them because of their side effects. Crowdfunding isn't easy because here our cultural production is heavily dependent on government aids and policies, instead of the private or public sectors. And donations aren't good idea because of the hidden interests they could have and the economic dependence they generate.
But I guess it has to happen to their bubble in order to get the point. For example, the Epstein controversial donations to +++MIT+++ Media Lab and his friendship with some folk of +++CC+++; or the use of open source software by the +++U.S.+++ Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While for decades +++FOSS+++ has been a mechanism to facilitate the murder of “Global South” citizens; a tool for Chinese labor exploitation denounced by the anti-996 movement; a licensewall for technological and knowledge access for people that can't afford infrastructure and the learning it triggers, even though the code is “free” to use; or a police of software freedom that denies to Latin America and other regions their right to self-determinate its freedom, its software policies and its economic models.
Those copyleft institutions that take care so much about “user freedoms” in fact they haven't being explicit about how +++FOSS+++ is helping to shape a world where a lot of us doesn't fit. It had to be a right-wing think tank the one who declares the relevance of +++FOSS+++ for warfare and authoritarian regimes, while this institutions have been putting a lot of efforts in justifying its way of understanding cultural production as a commodification of its political capacity. In their seek of government and corporate adoption of +++FOSS+++ they have shown that whereas they talk about users, their policies are designed to defend the use: objects before subjects.
There is some sort of cognitive dissonance that made many copyleft supporters to be very harsh with people that just want some kind of aid over the argument of which license or product is free or not. But in the meantime they don't defy and some of them even embrace the adoption of +++FOSS+++ for any kind of corporation, it doesn't matter it exploits its employees, surveils its users, helps to undermine democratic institutions or is part of a killing machine.
In my opinion, the term “use” is one of the key concepts that dilutes political capacity of +++FOSS+++ into the aestheticization of its activity. The spine of software freedom relies in its four freedoms: the freedoms of run, study, redistribute and improve the program. Even though Stallman, his followers, the +++FSF+++, the +++OSI+++, +++CC+++ and so on always indicate the relevance of “user freedoms,” this four freedoms aren't directly related to users. Instead, they are four different use cases.
The difference isn't minor thing. An use case neutralizes and reifies the subject of the action. In its dilution the interest of the subject becomes irrelevant. The four freedoms doesn't bans the use of a program for selfish, slayer or authoritarian uses. And neither it encourage them. By the romantic idea of a common good, it is easy to think that the freedoms of run, study, redistribute and improve a program are synonymous of a mechanism that improves welfare and democracy. But because this four freedoms doesn't relate to any user interest and instead they talk about the interest of using software and the adoption of an “open” cultural production, it hides the fact that sometimes the freedom of use goes against subjects.
So the argument that copyfarleft denies people to use software it only have sense between two confusions. First, the personification of institutions which the restricted access for some of them---like the ones that feed authoritarian regimes, perpetuate labor exploitation or surveil its users---translates to a restricted access to people. Second, the assumption where freedoms over software use cases is equal to the freedom of its users.
Actually, if your “open” economic model requires software use cases freedoms over users freedoms, we are far beyond the typical discussions about cultural production. I find very hard to defend that I support freedom if my work enable some uses that could go against other people freedoms. This is of course the freedom dilemma about paradox of tolerance. But my main conflict is when copyleft supporters boast about their defense of users freedoms while they micromanage other people software freedom definitions and, in the meantime, they turn their backs to the gray, dark or red areas of what it's implicit in the freedom they safeguard. Or they don't care about us or their privileges doesn't allow them to have empathy.
Since the +++GNU+++ Manifesto is clear the relevance of industry among software developers. I don't have a reply that could calm them down. It is becoming more clear that technology isn't just a broker that could be use or abuse. Technology or at least its development is a kind of political praxis. The inability of legislation for law enforcement and the possibility of new technologies to hold and help the statu quo express this political capacity of information and communications technologies.
So as copyleft hacked copyright law, with copyfarleft we could help to disarticulate structural power or we could induce civil disobedience. By prohibiting our work from being used by military, police or oligarchic institutions, we could force them to stop taking advantage and increase their maintenance costs. They could even reach the point where they couldn't operate anymore or at least they couldn't be as affective as our communities.
I know it sounds like a utopia because in practice we need the effort of a lot of people involved on technology development. But we already did it once: we used copyright law against itself and we introduced a new model of workforce distribution and means of production. We could again use copyright for our benefit, but now against the structures of power that surveils, exploits or kills people. These institutions need our “brainpower,” we can try by refuse them to use it. Some explorations could be software licenses that explicitly ban surveillance, exploitation or murder. We could also made difficult for them the theft of our technology development---nowadays +++FOSS+++ distribution models have confused open economy with gift economy---or the access to our communication networks---end-to-end encryption is important, we should extend its use instead of allowing governments to ban it.
Copyleft could be a global pandemic if we don't do anything against its incorporation inside virulent technologies of destruction. We need more organization. However, the software we are developing is free as in “social freedom,” not only as in “free individual.”