Lawrence Liang: Guide to Open Content Licenses v1.2 (2004)

Copyright is one of the most hotly contested areas of contemporary cultures. Many feel that current copyright regulations fail to meet the needs of information society and the realities of creative work. Many new practices of copyright – licenses which maintain the chosen rights of authors, but which work with rather than block the creative opportunities of the digital public domain – have emerged over the last few years.

This is the first systematic survey of the major open content licenses. Presented in a handy pocket-format it is designed both for non-specialists want to choose an appropriate use of copyright and for people who want solid background information.

Whether you are an artist, a peer-to-peer file sharer, or author of scientific papers the Guide to Open Content Licenses will provide you with an invaluable oversight and a how-to guide.

Published by Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam
Size: 110 A6 pages, paperbound
ISBN: 90-72855-16-7
Price: a gift
Additional material, chapter 1: Florian Cramer
Editors: Florian Cramer, Matthew Fuller, Calum Selkirk
Graphic design and book typography: Femke Snelting
HTML version: Florian Cramer
December 2004
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

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Sam Williams: Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software (2002)

“Free as in Freedom interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. It examines Stallman’s unique personality and how that personality has been at turns a driving force and a drawback in terms of the movement’s overall success. “Free as in Freedom examines one man’s 20-year attempt to codify and communicate the ethics of 1970s era “hacking” culture in such a way that later generations might easily share and build upon the knowledge of their computing forebears. The book documents Stallman’s personal evolution from teenage misfit to prescient adult hacker to political leader and examines how that evolution has shaped the free software movement. Like Alan Greenspan in the financial sector, Richard Stallman has assumed the role of tribal elder within the hacking community, a community that bills itself as anarchic and averse to central leadership or authority. How did this paradox come about? “Free as in Freedom provides an answer. It also looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have diminished Stallman’s leadership role in some areas while augmenting it in others. Finally, “Free as in Freedom examines both Stallman and the free software movement from historical viewpoint. Will future generations see Stallman as a genius or crackpot? The answer to that question depends partly on which side of the free software debate the reader currently stands and partly upon the reader’s own outlook for the future. 100 years from now, when terms such as “computer,” “operating system” and perhaps even “software” itself seem hopelessly quaint, will RichardStallman’s particular vision of freedom still resonate, or will it have taken its place alongside other utopian concepts on the ‘ash-heap of history?’

Published by O’Reilly, 2002
ISBN 0596002874, 9780596002879
225 pages

Key terms: GNU Project, Richard Stallman, Unix, Lisp Machine, Linus Torvalds, GNU Emacs, free software movement, AI Lab, operating system, hacker ethic, Free Software Foundation, Sun Microsystems, proprietary software, Steven Levy, GNU Manifesto, source code, Open Publication License, Eric Raymond, Minix, Napster

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Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman (2002)

The intersection of ethics, law, business and computer software is the subject of these essays and speeches by MacArthur Foundation Grant winner, Richard M. Stallman. This collection includes historical writings such as The GNU Manifesto, which defined and launched the activist Free Software Movement, along with new writings on hot topics in copyright, patent law, and the controversial issue of “trusted computing.” Stallman takes a critical look at common abuses of copyright law and patents when applied to computer software programs, and how these abuses damage our entire society and remove our existing freedoms. He also discusses the social aspects of software and how free software can create community and social justice.

Given the current turmoil in copyright and patent laws, including the DMCA and proposed CBDTPA, these essays are more relevant than ever. Stallman tackles head-on the essential issues driving the current changes in copyright law. He argues that for creativity to flourish, software must be free of inappropriate and overly-broad legal constraints. Over the past twenty years his arguments and actions have changed the course of software history; this new book is sure to impact the future of software and legal policies in the years to come.

By Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Joshua Gay, Free Software Foundation (Cambridge, Mass.)
Contributor Lawrence Lessig, Joshua Gay
Published by Free Software Foundation, 2002
ISBN 1882114981, 9781882114986
224 pages

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this book provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

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