[Upd-discuss] Re: [Upd-board] "Development", "freedom", and UPD's objectives

[Richard M. Stallman]

      In any case, a utilitarian analysis of
    copyright and patent law would give users far more rights than they
    presently enjoy, but tends not to raise in-principle objections to
    surrendering some rights if users (for example) end up with a
    net-benefit in the amount and quality[*] of software they use or books
    they read.

This "utilitarian analysis" assumes that what matters is the "amount
and quality" of software: that freedom itself counts for nothing.  So
you would take away my freedom and hand me a large amount of
high-quality proprietary software, covered by licenses I would refuse
to sign, so I wouldn't use them at all.

      If I were
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I would very much like my efforts to be rewarded
    by the royalty cheques that plucked him out of poverty.  I might want
    that enough to surrender the higher price of his books, were I a reader.

This would be enough to convince me to support a system requiring the
publisher to pay him royalties for a time.  That's why I don't
advocate eliminating copyright law.

However, it would not be enough to convince me to give up the
freedom to make a copy and share it with you.

    4. `Positive freedom' is the practical ability to do things.  Positive
    freedoms can be harmed by negative restraints, but only to the extent
    that a person would have used them anyway.  Positive freedoms also
    depend on what resources one has.

The fact that these depend so much on a person's wealth shows that the
term "positive freedoms" is misleading.  It disguises economics as a
kind of freedom.  At the same time, the term "negative" denigrates
real issues of freedom.

A crucial characteristic of real freedoms is that it makes sense to
give the same freedom to everyone.  However, only a system of extreme
communism would give everyone the same wealth.  Thus, these "positive
freedoms" don't correspond at all to our ideas of human rights.  They
have nothing to do with freedom.  Let's call a spade a spade, and call
this "wealth".

Producing more wealth is a useful thing to do, as long as it is not
concentrated among a few.  This is a benefit that can sometimes
justify a copyright system.  But there are limits to the price
in freedom I would pay for a share of this.


You've suggested that the UPD should try to work out a "balance"
between these ideas before proceeding to do anything else.  That would
mean putting our aims on hold until we solve the deepest problems of
the philosophy of ethics.

Those who would like to work on a general philosophy of ethics instead
are of course welcome to do so.  But the UPD has a practical mission,
to protect and enhance the public domain.  Let's not take a detour to
theoretical problems that we probably can't solve.