Intuitively, I like the merge "free content" + "culture" → "free culture" on the Discussions page, but I wanted to point out the way I think about the term "free culture" was as something to describe freely-modifiable culture "as a whole", not just specific cultural productions like "free content" usually seems to be talking about (nor the "culture" that goes into producing these productions).
On the other hand, perhaps a culture is no more than the sum of its productions, and if that is the case, then the merge of "free content" and "free culture" seems pretty perfect.
Some cultures may emphasize their freeness more than others that are also free - one week in october (OWIO) is meant to look at one culture that at least on the surface emphasizes "freedom" - but that in fact the note shows that only certain kinds of activities are really socially acceptable, even within this "free culture".
Let me also point out that the OWIO note is supposed to be "anthropological", whereas I feel that the other documents in that section seem to be somewhat more opinion-based. Which is fine… presumably the different approaches can inform one another.
But anyway, if we're going to use the term "free culture", let's try to get precise about what it means! --jcorneli Tue Apr 19 16:08:00 2005 UTC
Temple Grandin wrote an interesting description of why some people find writing free software worthwhile in her essay Genius May Be an Abnormality: Educating Students with Asperger's Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism:
"I have been reading, with great satisfaction, the many articles in magazines about Linux free software. People in the business world are not able to comprehend why the computer people give their work away. I am unable to think about this without becoming emotional. It is no mystery to me why they download their intellectual ideas into the vast, evolving and continually improving computer operating system. It is because their thoughts will live forever as part of the "genetic code" of the computer program. They are putting themselves into the program and their "intellectual DNA" will live forever in cyber-space. As the program evolves and changes, the code they wrote will probably remain hidden deep within it. It is almost like a living thing that is continually evolving and improving. For both me and for the programmers that contribute to Linux, we do it because it makes our lives more meaningful."
--rspuzio 16 May 2005
As I see it culture is not so much about productions as a system of relations and a plan for interactions between people. To me, the term "culture" refers to the sum total of things like shared values and beliefs, institutions, laws and rules, social arrangements, economic systems, language, symbolism, sense of historical identity, traditions, customs, rituals, artistic expression, and the like. Of course, production is relevant to culture even if I would disagree with the thesis that a culture is the sum total of its productions. On the one hand, what a group of people produces is likely to influence various aspects of their culture. On the other hand, a peoples' culture will also influence what is produced and how.
As for "free", I understand that it is being used here in a restricted sense here to refer primarily to free distribution of intellectual content as opposed to, for instance, civil rights or human rights. To study the subject properly, one should start with an exact definition of "free" such as was the subject of another discussion but, to get started, an approximate idea might suffice.
With these interpretations of the component terms, I understand the phrase "free culture" to refer to a culture which is compatible with and conducive to the free distribution and use of intellectual content. There are at least two ways that this issue can be studied – the descriptive approach and the prescriptive approach.
The descriptive approach consists of studying existing cultures. In particular, there have arisen subcultures in connection with such projects as GNU, Wikipedia, and Planet Math. Also, one could study how the notion of free intellectual content fits in or doesn't fit in with the norms of other cultures and how this idea has been recieved.
The prescriptive approach consists of designing a culture in which free intellectual content plays a prominent role and, even harder, trying to implement one's visions and convince others to join the movement. This has both a positive and a negative aspect. The negative aspect consists of identifying aspects of cultures which are in opposition to free intellectual content and finding ways to eleminate these obstacles. The positive aspect consists of trying to implement cultural norms and institutions which encourage and promote free intellectual content. --rspuzio 17 May 2005
Along the vein of what Ray has said, Wikipedia has been called "alive".
Joe, I don't think free culture requires that cultural artifacts be freely modifiable in place. However, you were always free (in the OWIO scenario) to take the entirety of PM, add your content, and create a derived work of your own, publishing it in potentially the exact same way. This is what makes it free, I think, the "output" publishing of an already-"published" cultural artifact is not limited from meeting or exceeding the publishing of the original artifact.
--akrowne Tue May 17 04:03:12 UTC 2005
I definitely agree about OWIO, but there are many different kinds of freedom in general, and I should note that I wasn't referring to the standard free-as-in-software definition in the paragraph above but to a more general notion.
Free software uptake is "pull" (just like market uptake is, um, supposed to be, "pull"). The issue with modification in place is that PM has an monopoly on being PM. Within PM, each article has a monopoly on being that article.
Wikipedia articles are modifiable in place, which gives users a different kind of freedom from that found on PM. GNU is sort of in between - GNU software can be modified in place if your modifications are approved of by the maintainers.
On the other hand, the culture of Wikipedia (like both PM and GNU cultures) doesn't permit just any kind of article to be created (google for Mediacrat to get an example). Sure, one could (in theory) fork Wikipedia, or – more likely, because it happened – go and create some other encyclopedia where the non-wikipedia-approved topics can be discussed.
That is the same outcome that was associated with OWIO.
I think these discussions are quite apposite.
--jcorneli Tue May 17 04:45:01 2005 UTC
I kind of glossed over what Ray said above, so I'll make up for that with some comments now.
Yes, I agree. I meant the term "cultural productions" to denote not "production", but the "the sorts of things you're talking about" – beliefs, institutions, etc. – including, confusingly, "systems for production" -- agriculture, industry, business, etc.!
The closest usage I can think for the term "production" as I meant it in this context would be the way it is used to describe the productions of a grammar. A grammar is (pretty much) the sum of its productions.
I was quite serious when I said that maybe a culture is the sum of its (cultural) productions. The problem is that the terminology isn't that clear. Maybe the analogy to grammars will help.
Suppose that a given group is presented with some event. If you knew all of their "cultural productions", i.e., if you understood their culture, you could predict what they would do (like what happens when a sentence is passed to a parser). Well, really you would probably only be able to come up with a rough prediction – because a number of non-cultural factors that you might not understand are likely to come into play.
One of the things I like best about culture is that you can't realistically say "what if we had the whole data feed" – because human activities will mess with the data (aka anthropogenic change, feedback).
The point of "free culture" as in freely-modifiable culture "as a whole" like I was talking about above is that this culture system itself is subject to culture change. People invent "cars" or "civil rights" or "boolean algebra" and the culture changes.
I was confused by the term "free culture" because it sounds a lot like "free software", right, or "free math", "free biology". But, as we've been talking about, "culture" is pretty much at the top of the lattice, and it is pretty obvious that it can be changed "freely". In some sense of the word "free". Obviously it isn't easy, but it does happen. (E.g. a recent smoking ban went into place here in Minneapolis recently; a lot of people worked hard to make this happen, and some people fought them. But now the change has been effected, and there is no smoking in local bars and restaurants - its no longer an active part of our culture.)
And of course culture is also changing simultaneously through a (co-)evolutionary process with the rest of the world. (I'm assuming that whatever definition of "free" we choose depends on agency; culture change is not necessarily brought about on purpose.)
So, like I said, I find the term "free culture" to be somewhat confusing.
I see what you're saying about "free distribution of intellectual content" being the key thing… but the point that culture itself could qualify as "intellectual content" shouldn't be ignored. (Like I said, I'm not sure I want to distinguish between a culture and the sum of its cultural productions.)
Does it mean a culture which is compatible with and conducive to the free distribution and use of intellectual content or does it mean the productions of such a culture? And what about a culture whose cultural productions include – or at least, heavily influence – the culture itself?
Again, with "free math", we are currently allowed to change, modify, reproduce, and redistribute the ideas. Culture as a whole is pretty much the same.
"Free biology" presumably doesn't mean gene hackery – although I suppose it could. The "free culture" of this alternate definition that I've been circling in on here might be something like the weird, advanced, form of "free biology" that basically would involve editing DNA to create new lifeforms, and then making the results "free as in freedom".
The idea that one might be able to do the same thing with culture isn't too impossible-seeming. In addition to this distinction between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" cultural studies, another relevant distinction would be between "actionable" and "non-actionable".
If I can describe the DNA of a frog, for example, that's rather different from being able to create a blue and orange striped frog on a whim. The DNA listing isn't actionable in and of itself.
A "full description" of a culture might be actionable - in the sense of simulation. (Well, maybe, maybe not.)
And clearly, it is very different problem, to descibe a utopia and to create one… even a rather crummy one. But people do manage to do things like manufacture corporate culture or start new countries or whatever, so certainly there is some precident for "actionable+prescriptive" culture-building.
Anyway, to conclude… I'm still not really 100% comfortable with the term "free culture". I personally think that it means both "free cultural productions" and "a culture that is compatible with and conducive to the free distribution and use of intellectual content" and also "culture that supports free modification of itself by its participants." That's a loaded term for you. I like all the ideas, but I worry that using this term may be confusing for me and other people!
--jcorneli Tue May 17 23:42:07 2005 UTC
Here is yet another example of "free culture". In this occasion, the spotlight is on the first "open source beer":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4718719.stm
--alozano :D
Does "free culture" have any meaning when freedom itself is at an "undisclosed location" – along with the Bill of Rights?
"Mike Whitney: 'Drifting towards a Police State' Contributed by megsdad on Saturday, November 05 @ 08:56:20 EST This article has been read 1776 times."
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=23494&mode=nested&order=0
P.S. For another less depressing perspective, if your brain is weary from trekking the crystalline slopes of Mt. Metamath, try a free book about being free…in some other place (like a different planet :) A bit preachy but the first 6 chapters are ok:
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0743471792/0743471792.htm http://www.webscription.net/free/downloadSingle.asp?downloadCode=0743471792
And the price is right (do we really want "freedom" or just free stuff?)
--ocat
Obviously freedom, at least, around here. Except, it may be even worse than "drifting towards a police state" – maybe there is no free will whatsoever. I don't know if that is depressing, but maybe it is interesting. --jcorneli
Let me advance one suggested reading that I think helps illuminate what we're after here, on AM, and with this "free culture" idea more generally: This is the DotCommunist Manifesto by Eben Moglen. I think that in combination with the Coase's Penguin paper, this provides a solid introduction to what "free cbpp" is all about; whereas the Benkler article considers the economic aspects of the movement, the Moglen article looks at its political aspects. I'd like to be able to suggest one or two other short pieces like this by different authors, but nothing else is immediately coming to mind.
I probably passed up this Moglen article a half-dozen times because of the title. For some reason I didn't like the association of the free software movement with communism that the title implies. But I think I've dabbled enough with the revolutionary thinking behind the movement on my own to be willing to entertain someone else's conceptions of this stuff. For what it is worth, here is a quote from the article I'm talking about that attempts to justify precisely this sort of speech:
The basic point to take away from Moglen's article is that it isn't so much "free stuff" as "control over the means of production" that people in the free culture movement are after. Sure, free-as-in-no-cost comes into play (this is the issue of "zero marginal cost for digital works" ); already a physical fact but not yet a ubiquitous social reality. The key thesis in the Moglen article seems to be, roughly – that we don't want our work to be appropriated by the bosses and then sold back to us. To me this seems like an issue of control more than an issue of cost, but it is certainly true that cost plays a role.
Moglen ends the article with seven agenda items on issues of freedom and control:
Interesting that "private property in ideas" tops the bill here, since that is something that our discussions have often considered; even though we've been saying that copyright doesn't convey property rights in mathematical ideas, it has been a somewhat touchy issue all along the way.
I can well imagine the following quote from the article being a major (legal) issue for the HDM project at some point (and if you think about this from the point of view of bottlenecks, it is already a major strategic issue):
Before signing off, I want to expand on my comment above about free will a bit. The point I want to make is that the "liberties model" of freedom (advanced by me on the wiki page towards a definition of freedom) seems to be compatible with a world in which free will does not exist. The interesting conclusion is that freedom is important even in a deterministic model. Because, freedom has to do with the pursuit of happiness. When someone exercises power over you and reduces your ability to pursue happiness, the landscape shifts, and your freedom is reduced by degrees, until, in the extreme case, you have only one option for survival available to you. According to this theory, free will was always irrelevant; supposing, for example, that when you had many options, you always chose the one you deemed "best", there is no real "free will" here, just mechanical rationality. The person who appears to have many options may have no more "real" options than the zombie. But I think that you will find that the person who gets to "make choices" is happier, in general, than the person who has no "choices" to make.
Bringing this back to bear on the subject at hand, Moglen (and others in the free software movement) are talking about abolishing technologies and systems for control (i.e., for the elimination of choice, or anyway, the elimination of "real choice").
People opposing the GNU view of things often say that they and their constituencies are "more free" in an environment that includes e.g. private property in software. This seems similar in some ways to my saying that me and my loved ones are "more free" in an environment in which murder is legal. I suppose that could be an interesting proposition to ponder.
I'll close by noting that one part of the idea of "freedom" expressed by Moglen is that no one is free unless everyone is. --jcorneli
Joe, I think your "Before signing off" segment eloquently recaps the argument for the "GNU definition of freedom".
But the argument is missing something, and I think perhaps this is where economics might come in, because involves the notion of incentives.
To continue in your language, what if your loved ones had an idea for software they could create, but without restricted distribution, there would be no funding (or recompense) to cover the effort for its creation? In this sense, they would be less free. Of course, this same freedom would be unavailable to yourself. If it helps, imagine that it would take more than two man-years to complete in a reasonable amount of time (say, two years), so you would need more than yourself to create the software; i.e., you couldn't just quit your job and create it. In this sense, you would be less free.
I keep coming back to this "hypothetical" point because it is not so hypothetical. I can envision lots of software initiatives and situations which would require some restrictions to be put on access in able for them to be created. And I don't see how anyone could prove that (a) an equivalent would be "provided by the world" otherwise, or (b) that the software wouldn't be worth what society is collectively "paying for it" anyway.
The argument is particularly strong when the "target market" does not have the expertise, ability, or desire to help with the development of the software instead of simply paying for it.
We see this as a business model in reality all the time.
When free/open source is a viable alternative, it tends to happen. But the availability of this possibility hasn't eliminated commercial software.
(BTW, I reject the murder analogy, because it is a purely negative "type of freedom", only involving taking something away, whereas creating software with some restriction on access is still additive).
To switch to the non-executable content domain, I am not so sure I'd bother with scholarly publication if there was no defense for an "attribution" form of copyright, or support for verbatim-only-dissemination licenses. Perhaps a little publication "theft" by academic pirates would not be so bad, but the possibility of this might be so de-motivating as to stunt my incentive to create and distribute theses, essays, and other forms of written ideas.
So, I still think "maximal freeness" comes from allowing some notion of restricted access, if it is so desired.
To address some of Moglen's demands (most of which I agree with):
Well, this is one of the things that worked worst about communism. Private property is "less important" for ideas, but as I've illustrated above, I still think there is some sense in which conceptual works can be productively treated as property. This is why I think Stallman's claim that "intellectual property is meaningless" is simply an in-defensible personal opinion; even regular property is purely conceptual. Law is purely conceptual. These things "exist" in that we can create some functional model for them, and begin using it, and it works for the greater common good.
This of course follows from the above demand. I certainly believe that all such development done with common resources should have no restriction on use. But I would claim that public domain might even be going too far; you'd probably get more quality works if the authors, working for the government, could at least reliably attach their reputations to the works.
Well, ok, how are you going to protect the integrity of an essay of mine unless I can distribute it with a verbatim-only license?
In conclusion, I don't think "free culture" requires the GNU notion of "free" in order to be meaningful or socially useful. In fact, I think it is less free than a model in which some restrictions are allowed. Besides the fact that you'll never convince everyone to "play along" with the GNU-only model, I think it ultimately comes down to subjective preferences. And by this yardstick, allowing restrictions is in fact more permissive.
--akrowne Thu Nov 10 02:45:05 UTC 2005
This discussion forks: Free Culture - Discussion of Intellectual Property / Free Culture - Debating DotCommunist Manifesto