Free isn't free

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about MGM v. Grokster, the music/movie downloading case over peer-to-peer software. The writer, Daniel Henninger, rightly points out that most people have no problem downloading music and movies without paying for them, while they would slap their kids with a solid grounding for shoplifting. On the one hand, that is an ethical dichotomy. On the other, this does seem like a victimless crime (considering the Ken-Lay-esque ethics of many of the music and movie execs). And while many bands resent the free downloads, many -- like I heard Maroon 5 say on VH1 -- look at this as another way to gain a little name recognition and get a fan base. That's how Maroon 5 got their recording contract.

My favorite quote, though, is at the end of the article, and I like it only because of the rabbit trails it sends me on:

Some who will spend hundreds of dollars for iPods and home theater systems won't pay one thin dime for a song or movie. So Steve Jobs and the Silicon Valley geeks get richer while the new-music artists sweating through three sets in dim clubs get to live on Red Bull. Where's the justice in that?

Heh. First of all -- how dare someone have to spend sweat and effort to get fame and fortune! The greats like Dylan and the Beatles never did that! No one ever has to work nowadays!

But the real funny is the idea of Steve Jobs and others getting rich off the "free" movement. Trust me, I work as a technical writer for a software project. There is a much wider world of "free" out there where Grokster is an inconsequential tip f the iceburg. Free, you see, doesn't really mean free.

There's a a whole community -- they're called Linux people -- who believe that free software is a human right. But they can't really decide what free means. The basest definition is "free like free beer." Since Microsoft sells products, it is not free, and therefore the Big Evil.

Then there's free as in working like you paid for it only not paying for it. Linux people are furious if you imply software should work. Seriously, a business email I was forwarded about a project actually contained the words "free isn't free." For them documentation means reading and interpreting the source code, and what you don't pay in money you should pay for in time and skill (knowing what you're doing is "clue," as in, they have a clue). People who aren't willing to put in that effort don't deserve freedom.

But having to work with source code means that all source code should be available for people to tinker with. If the source code is not available, the software is not free! (Even if it is free beer.) And any changes that you make must then be given back to the free community, otherwise the improved software isn't free. And all the parts that go into making the software -- Java, Apache, drivers and graphics and web information -- need to be free in the open-source sense, too.

So being free like beer isn't good enough. Making the source open to the public and demanding all changes be returned aren't enough. Using open-source, non-proprietary free components aren't enough. Some people actually complain because open-source dvelopment sites that obey all aspects of free for one pice of software have offered unrelated applications that used proprietary components, so that site is no longer ideologically pure.

And it really does come back to ideology. The corporate Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and others aren't the harbingers of an e-free revoluation. It's a bunch of punk-rock teen agers and techno-quasi-anrachists-cum-communisits, religious zealots and utopian ideologues. To the "free" people, they are the enemy, not the savior. But that environment isn't sustainable forever. In 10 years, the Grokster case isn't going to matter any more for peer-2-peer or Internet technologies or free software and filsharing. I don't know (or care) much about Grokster. In the free versus proprietary battle, free has already lost -- nothing will ever be pure enough, and proprietary, which actually rewards hard work and intellecutal property rights with profit -- will win out in the long run. Eventually, that inherent structural dependence on proprietary rights would have struck a balance with music and movies through (wait for it) market forces.

It's interesting to see the dust-up that the "free" community can make, and the strange bedfellows that are coupled here. What may be more intersting as a result of Grokster, though, isn't the affect on peer-2-peer software or technology, but the extent of regulation the government can exert on online communication (which, in 10 years, is probably how this will be interpreted). Any guesses on which part of the government, the SCOTUS or FEC, is the first to try to limit what people say on the Internet? After all, the First Amendment isn't absolute, and free doesn't really mean free.

Few more thoughts

I'm hesitant to say too much more about John Paul II, because I'm not Catholic and it feels too much like a slight acquaintance barging in to a family's memorial. So briefly --

1. Who died with more dignity -- Terri Schiavo or Pop John Paul II?

2. The New York Times says things. Sigh.

3. Reuters and CBS seem to be on the cutting edge of trying to let media frenzies die with dignity.

The Pope has died

Just a thought. I'm not Catholic, and I'm young enough that a lot of the praise and remembrances being heaped on the pope about his fortitude and bravery in fighting Communism in the 1970s and 1980s deals with something I don't remember or equate with him.

I do have the same feeling now as I did when Reagan died, like I lost something that meant "good" to me. Pope John Paul II (like Ronald Reagan) was someone who believed in something, someone who stood for something passionately, some who led because of the attraction and fervency of his own beliefs. When Ronald Reagan died, I remembered the pride I felt in America when I was growing up, the hopefulness and the sense of destiny. America really was a morning place to me because it was to Ronald Reagan. He believed "in the greatness of America, and the greatness of the American people."

As the Pope has lay dying and has died, I am reflecting on my own walk with God, on the preciousness of life, of handling illness and death with grace and a reflection of the love of God for a single soul. Pope John Paul II was someone who seemed so very close with God. So affectionate and familiar with Him, something I'm not but something I admire.

To me, Pope John Paul II cannot be equated with destroying Communism, although, apparently he deserves as much earthly credit for that as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He believed in the essential freedom and dignity of the human soul with a passion and fervency that led him to fight and counsel world leaders but that transcended politics -- but this wasn't something he seemed to believe as politics. No matter that I'm not Catholic -- he was a man who knew God. Pope John Paul II could fight Communism and fight abortion and fight for freedom only because he knew and believed and loved God. "It is for freedom Christ has set us free." To me, Reagan embodied patriotism, even America herself, and the hopefulness of the future. To me, the pope symbolized a zeal and devotion to God and to our Lord Jesus that was personal and so real and sincere, an uwavering confidence in the transcendency of his religious conviction, and, at the end, a man gracious in suffering and convinced by that suffering of both the frailty and the beauty, the gift, of life.

This is on the tombstone of my great-aunt, and it's the highest epitaph I can offer to this Pope -- He lived and died a Christian.

No media bias

Fox just had their media critic on, saying that the media coverage was skewered to those who favored keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Whew! Glad about that -- I coulda sworn it went the other way, but I guess that's why I'm not a media critic.