Re: [kFW] All-Inclusivity (DRM and Kendra)

[Daniel Harris <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Pat and All,

Please see comments...

At 14:52 01/02/02 -0600, Pat Gratton wrote:
>I'll start with something that you'll completely disagree with...  One of my
>dictums in life is: If you're not pissing someone off, then you're probably
>doing something wrong!

;-) OK. If that's how you want to live your life then fine. I respect that. 
I hope it gets you to your goal. As a dictum it doesn't work for me. Having 
founded and run a successful ISP for 5 years my understanding is that when 
you're not pissing people off then you're doing something right. You could 
say our competitors were pissed off but they weren't. There was enough for 
everyone and there was much mutual cooperation and even comradery - such as 
with peering points.

As a way of life pissing people off doesn't give me pleasure either. Just 
as being pissed off myself doesn't give me pleasure. Why would I wish it on 
anyone else? It's not the kind of world I want to live in.

So, please clarify, is your primary aim to piss people off? And if it isn't 
why use that as a metric of whether your being successful with your ideas 
or not?

On another hand Ella Harris, my sister, who just dropped by, sees your 
dictum as: even if people are pissed off at you doesn't mean that you're 
doing something wrong. An element of reassurance. How about that? She 
continues that sometimes development and growth can piss people off at 
having to change. So, pissing people off could be a result of development 
and growth, which is good, yeh?

Hmmm... Lots of ways of looking at what you've said. Could you provide some 
clarity as to what exactly you mean?

>Either you're unclearly stating you
>opinions/ideas/design, or you're not paying close enough attention to
>people's reactions.

Well, I know I can always do better on both. Are you saying we're pissing 
people off because we are or are not doing these things? Not sure how your 
ideas relate here.

>While "all-inclusivity" sounds good, the fact is that some people's
>viewpoints/desires are diametrically opposed.

Being all-inclusive is not the same as being all-in-agreement or 
all-the-same. It's an understanding that we're all here together whether we 
like it or not so we better make the best of it, eh?

The Internet (as in TCP/IP and other protocols) is a great example of 
all-inclusivity. As long as one adheres to the protocol one can communicate 
no matter what one's views on life. Language is also all-inclusive and 
allows us to talk about our different ways of doing things.

The upshot of being all-inclusive is not that we all *have* to agree on the 
way we all live our lives but that we have an understanding that my way is 
my way and your way is your way. I guess you could say a mutual respect for 
each other's point of view. We all have different ways of doing things and 
bloody good job too otherwise the world would be a dead boring place.

>So if you take any stance on
>the issue that they care about, then you're going to piss off at least one
>of them.

Yup, if you agree with either one side or the other - take sides - then 
yes, I agree with you, you'll piss someone off (I hope I'm not pissing 
anyone off by agreeing with you on that point! Ha! Ha! ;-).

So, the key here is not to take sides. Yeh, you could ask "how can you do 
*anything* if you can't take sides?" Simple: you build bridges, apply glue, 
provide translation, enable communication. That's what I see us doing here 
in Kendra Initiative - gluing all the bits together to make them work 
properly and enable the creation of a working system.

>So, the good news (according to my dictum) is that you've managed to raise
>the hackles of RMS by supporting DRM!  The bad news is that you think that
>this is avoidable somehow!  It's not - RMS is diametrically opposed to any
>system that allows purveyors of information to limit acccess of users to
>information - which is exactly what DRM does.

I'm continuing to learn about the world of rights and, on the face of it, 
it does seem as if you could be correct here. But we're only a few emails 
in with Richard and so I think there's a way to go yet.

Is not the GPL and just another instance of DRM? Isn't that what Scott 
Pollard continues to insist?

>Some notes on the previous DRM thread...
>
>RMS said...
>>In its form, this appears to be a neutral stance, but its substance is
>>a specific and controversial political position.  It says that the
>>content owner makes the decisions about what the user can do--the user
>>does not decide for himself.  It gives rights owners, but to users it
>>gives only suffrance.
>>
>>I disagree with that position--I think users should have rights.
>>
>> ...
>>
> >"Charged for" could mean a server asks for a payment before permitting
> >a download, or it could mean the server tries to impose Digital
> >Restrictions Management.  These are very different issues, so your
> >respose doesn't actual say whether Kendra will support Digital
> >Restrictions Management.  Could you tell me?
>
>It's informative that RMS characterizes DRM as Digital "Restrictions"
>Management.  He see them primarily as restrictions on the the "rights" of
>information consumers.  (The obvious observation is that ALL rights are
>restrictions!  The right to free speech restricts the government from
>attempting to shut me up.  Copy rights restrict non-IP owners from copying
>or distributing IP.)  Is he offended because rights for one party are
>restrictions for another party?  Then he's offended by the notion of
>"right"!

Right! Good points. I'll put them to him.

>And Daniel said...
>> The issues that I see Richard raising and my thoughts:
>>
>> - content owners and content consumers should have equal rights when it
>> comes to what one can do with the content. My take is that content owners
>> will place "requirements for usage" (restrictions) on the content they
>> provide and their relationship with the consumer. And the content consumer
>> will place "requirements for usage" on the content they obtain and their
>> relationship with the owner. Where the "requirements for usage" are the
>> same (compatible) then the content will flow - there's an agreement
>between
>> the consumer and owner.
>
>"Equal rights" for content owners and creators doesn't make sense - because
>their roles are inherently complementary.  I don't believe that this is what
>RMS is proposing.  The process that you describe is a contract negotiation -
>not a right.  Note however, that this contract negotiation would not be
>possible unless the IP holder had certain rights that the content consumer
>did not - namely the right to control copying and distribution.  There is no
>complementary right on the part of the consumer.  Without copy right, the
>content consumer could just get a copy of the digital good from someone
>other
>than the IP holder (for a presumably lower price).

Thanks for your clarity here. That helps a lot.

>Conclusion: You're trying to talk your way around the fundamental
>disagreement between RMS and DRM.  It's not working - the two are
>incompatible.

When I was a kid, playing in Cornish fields, I said to myself that I should 
always be able to talk to anybody and engage in communication at any level 
to arrive at an agreement with them. I changed that view when I grew and 
came into contact with people that would consume me if I let them - those 
conversations would be geared to winning the argument no matter what, all 
about word play (not the kind of cooperative creation/design as we're doing 
here) and so were pretty fruitless as learning experiences.

Now, for me, it's important to engage in conversation as a means of 
learning about who I am and who the other person is, not as a means of 
persuasion (though I admit I sometimes lapse (and feel uncomfortable 
afterwards)). I hope other people can learn off me as I learn off them - 
about each other.

So, I'm not trying to persuade Richard to accept DRM but trying to learn 
why he can't. Close but not exactly the same thing. There's more the know 
yet. Thanks for your comments they are very helpful.

Cheers Daniel