Free Culture for a Free Society

(This article appeared in Infochange India.)

Introduction

On January 31, 2011, there was an unusual meeting at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, Kerala. The participants were a few young people, some of them activists of the Free Software movement in Kerala – people who were contributing to Free software or to localising Free software in Malayalam. Some of them were interested in animation and one or two of them had some experience in doing 3D animation. What brought them together was a project that had been launched a few months earlier. The project was to create a 3D animation movie as a community effort using Blender and other pieces of Free Software. Blender is a piece of software for doing 3D modelling, animation and even non-linear editing. A piece of proprietary software to begin with, when the company found the going tough, it was taken over by a group that included its developers and the community of users who liked the software. They released it under the GNU General Public Licence, which made it Free software that anyone could download and use. The Blender Foundation that was created to maintain the software subsequently got animators together to create three short animation films – Elephant's Dream, Big Buck Bunny and Sintel – that are available for anyone to download. While the objective of the Blender Foundation was to demonstrate the capabilities of the software, the objective of the young enthusiasts who got together in Calicut, in Kerala (now known as Kozhikode) was to show that cultural products like films could be created by a community and distributed freely – something that goes directly opposite to the existing paradigm of culture being seen as an industry and a means of making profit. The project is called Chamba following the practice started by the Blender Foundation of calling their free movie projects by the names of fruits, and it was started on the suggestion of a young veteran of Free Software, Praveen, who also gave it its name. Details of the project can be found at http://www.chambaproject.in.

Readers may wonder what the purpose of such an exercise is. Creating a movie involves a lot of effort by a number of people, expertise and investment of money. If the product of all this effort and expenditure is distributed freely, how is the money going to be recouped? With little chance of the money being recouped, who is going to invest in the first place? It is quite understandable if people think this wildly Utopian. But such ideas are signs of changing times rather than just Utopian dreams of ideologically motivated and energetic youth. We are in an age when products that used to be made by companies in pursuit of profit are increasingly being created by large groups of individuals just for the fun of doing it. Free Software and Wikipedia are very good examples.

Free Software

About a quarter of a century back, one man decided that software is like knowledge and therefore it should be Free (as in Freedom). That is, software should be available to the user with the freedom to not only use it as (s)he wants, but also to share it, modify it and redistribute it. So he started writing software to be distributed with these freedoms. He called such software Free Software, emphasising whenever possible that the word Free here referred to freedom and not to price (to avoid the confusion, in French they use the word Libre, and in India we call it Swatantra Software). He also formulated a licence under which such software could be distributed. He called it the General Public Licence. It uses the provisions of the copyright laws to make the software available freely rather than to restrict access. He also started an organisation to popularise his ideas. The project to create Free Software was called GNU (short for GNU's Not Unix). The organisation was called the Free Software Foundation (with headquarters in Boston, USA). The conditions in the licence made the software freely (without payment) available too. Which meant that it was not easy for the producers of Free Software to sell it for a price because anyone could download it from the Internet). Thus was born what Yochai Benkler of New York University School of Law called “called commons-based peer production”.

A lot of people at that time thought that this was a crazy idea. “Who would want to create software and give it away for free?” people thought. But gradually more and more people joined him to create what is today a wonderful array of applications and operating systems that are eating into the market of software built and sold by companies. Such software is becoming widely popular not only on servers and personal computers but also on mobile phones. Today, the fastest growing segment in mobile phones is the one that has the Android operating system, which is a piece of Free Software. Firefox, a web browser that is growing rapidly in popularity because of its features and the security from malware that it provides), is another example of Free Software. Other examples are Open Office, a powerful office suite and Apache, a very popular web server that runs about 65% of web pages. Very popular services on the world wide web, such as Google and Yahoo! run on Free Software. The man who started this revolution is Richard Stallman, the leader of the Free Software movement and the hero of millions of Free Software enthusiasts.

Today there are several companies that do business in Free Software. Some of the big names in the business include Red Hat (which was one of the first in the business), Canonical (that created the very popular Ubuntu version of GNU/Linux), and Mandriva (popular among new users). India has its official version of the operating system that was developed by CDAC and Anna University (called Bharath Operating System Solution, or BOSS) that supports all Indian languages by default, and China has its official version, Yellow Dog. Young Indian engineers and students have made it possible for the GNU/Linux desktop to have all menus and icons in Indian languages. All this is possible because of the freedoms enshrined in the licence. Kerala State uses only Free Software in its schools and its policy mandates Free Software for all public purposes. The state has set up the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) in Thiruvananthapuram. The Government of Assam is following suit and some other states like Karnataka and Gujarat are also in the process of moving their schools to Free Software. The Government of India itself is considering recommending Free Software for school education. And India is not alone. Many countries from Brazil to Uruguay and China to Venezuela have policies that favour Free Software. Paraguay is in the process of setting up a centre for Free Software. In the country that created computers and the Internet, the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee recommended in the year 2000 that the federal government back Free software as a strategic national choice to sustain the U.S. lead in critical software development. But more importantly, the Free Software movement has influenced other areas of human activity also. For instance, Samir Brahmachari, the then director of the Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology (IGIB), a government research laboratory under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) , launched the open source drug discovery programme in 2007 to see whether it can do for drug research what the Free Software movement did in the software world. But let us focus on the areas of knowledge and culture.

Wikipedia

It was again Stallman who suggested that there should be a Free encyclopedia that should allow anyone to use or share all its contents. That was how Wikipedia was eventually born. Today, Wikipedia is clearly the largest encyclopedia, with articles in more than 250 languages and growing. In English alone, it has more than 3½ million articles. And all the text in it and all the pictures used in it can be freely taken and used by anyone for any purpose. Currently, all the content of Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence. Which means that all the content can be used for any purpose in its original form or modified to suit any purpose without any special permission from its authors. Thus, for instance, one could make a compilation of Wikipedia articles that are relevant for school students and print and sell copies provided the attribution criteria specified in the licence are met. One could even translate the articles into any language and distribute them as long as the simple guidelines in the licence are followed. One may wonder how reliable the information provided in Wikipedia is. A study conducted by the science journal Nature some time back showed that the errors in Wikipedia are not very much more than those in Encyclopedia Britannica. That should hardly be worrying.

So who contributed all these articles to Wikipedia? They were all written by people like us, people who thought it worthwhile spending some time for common cause. People who didn't think that everything they do should get them money. They were people who found pleasure in contributing to a common cause, and the pleasure was what they got in return. It is unfortunate that a lot of people today think that the only return they can get is in terms of money, and forget that most of us do a lot of things just for the sake of the pleasure it gives us. Think of gardening, or painting or even creative writing (such as poetry or fiction). There are individuals who have very responsible jobs who still enjoy simple things like gardening. Or cooking. Or even driving their own cars! Thus, if a professor of history spends some time writing an article for Wikipedia, he may not only enjoy it, but it could become a resource for his classes that he could tell his students to read. The fact that so many articles got written in so many languages is a strong indication that people do find it interesting and useful to contribute to a community project like Wikipedia. And that too without any expectation of monetary gains or even name and fame! This would have been unimaginable some time back. People have doubted the reliability of the information available in Wikipedia. Not any more. A study by the well-known science journal Nature based on 2,000 articles some time back found that Wikipedia articles had just four errors on the average while the revered Encyclopedia Britannica had three! And recently, a peer-reviewed study by Adam Brown, a political scientist in Brigham Young University, has found that Wikipedia is a reliable place to get political information. And the phenomenon of Wikpedia, its way of functioning, how the communities resolve conflicts and so on have become topics of detailed study in the academic world. Another outstanding example of commons-based peer-production.

Copyright

A natural question would be, “So what about copyright?” Today, copyright is taken as an automatic right that any creator gets almost as a return for his creation. As Lawrence Liang writes, “The greatest success of the concept of copyright has been its successful elevation to the status of myth through the constant rendering of certain familiar figures (the poor struggling author), arguments (people deserve to own the fruit of their labour) and rhetorical data (billions of dollars lost due to piracy).” (http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-suresh010205.htm)

It is interesting to see how the copyright law came into being. It was Queen Anne (1665-1714) of England who first promulgated a law that is close to today's copyright law. Known as the Statute of Anne, it gave the authors the right to give permission to printers to print and sell their works. This itself was a result of exclusive rights given earlier to publish books in England, with the aim of controlling what books got published. It may be best to quote Wikipedia here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne):

“The origins of copyright law in most European countries lies in efforts by governments to regulate and control the output of printers. The technology of printing was invented and widely established in the 15th and 16th centuries. Before the printing press, writings could only be physically multiplied by the highly laborious and error-prone process of manual copying out. Printing allowed for multiple exact copies of a work, leading to a more rapid and widespread circulation of ideas and information. While governments and church in many ways encouraged printing, which allowed the dissemination of Bibles and government information, works of dissent and criticism could also circulate rapidly. As a consequence, governments established controls over printers across Europe, requiring them to have official licences to trade and produce books. The licenses typically gave printers the exclusive right to print particular works for a fixed period of years, and enabled the printer to prevent others from printing the same work during that period. The licenses could only grant rights to print in the territory of the state that had granted them, but they did usually prohibit the import of foreign printing.

In England the printers, known as stationers, formed a collective organisation, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, commonly known as the Stationers' Company. In the 16th century the Stationers' Company was given the power to require all lawfully printed books to be entered into its register. Only members of the Stationers' Company could enter books into the register. This meant that the Stationers' Company achieved a dominant position over publishing in 17th century England (no equivalent arrangement formed in Scotland and Ireland). But the monopoly, granted to the Stationers' Company through the Licensing Act 1662, came to an end when parliament decided not to renew the Act after it lapsed in May 1695.”

With Queen Anne on the throne, the new joint parliament of England and Scotland passed the Copyright Act 1709 (formal title: An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned), commonly known as the Statute of Anne. The Act came into effect in 1710.

The stated purpose of the law was the “encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books”. This was obviously not seen as a natural right, but as an “encouragement to learned men” so that society will benefit from their work. The “encouragement” was in the form of a share of the profit from selling the printed copies of their works. And the monopoly right of the author was to extend for a period of 14 years, with the possibility of extending it for 14 years more.

The copyright law was eventually adopted by many other countries and are enforced by treaties such as the Berne Convention of 1886 (later revised several times) and the Geneva Convention of 1952. It went through several changes and today provides monopoly rights to the copyright holder for a period up to 60 years after the death of the author in some countries.

Many people do not find it reasonable to enforce monopoly for such long periods. And many people believe that any new work only builds on the existing. In other words, nothing is entirely new. The proponents of monopoly restrictions that last for long, or even perpetually, argue that such laws would help the arts by forcing people to innovate and come up with something original and not just reuse existing work. But opponents point out that no work is really original. “The image of the author as a wellspring of originality, a genius guided by some secret compulsion to create works of art out of a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, is an 18th century invention”, they say (Anna Nimus: Copyright, Copyleft and the Creative Anti-Commons). And remember Sir Isaac Newton's famous words, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” in a letter to Robert Hooke on 16 February 1676. He was, in fact, referring to an old Latin metaphor (nanos gigantium humeris insidentes) meaning “One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past.”

Culture in the Age of ICT

Whatever that may be, we know that great music and great literature were born in India, and other countries for that matter, when there was no copyright law. The creators were often supported by kings, or even by the public (Thiagaraja abjured a life in a king's court, for example). The kings have gone, and we have governments of the people, by the people and for the people in their places. They can, and should, support the creators who need support. If not the public can. And the public do, as the case of the music group Radio Head shows.

Radiohead are an English alternative rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Formed in 1985, Radiohead were ranked 73 in Rolling Stone's list of “The Greatest Artists of All Time” in 2005. Their first six albums sold more than 25 million copies by 2007. They independently released their seventh album, In Rainbows (2007), originally as a digital download on their own website. There was no physical form, such as a CD, in which people could buy the album and there was none of the big labels. It was available just in digital form for which customers could set their own price or not pay at all! The site just said, “it's up to you”. “It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.” said Time magazine. Apparently, the first day saw 1.2 million downloads! Sold in physical form later, in December 2007 in the UK and in January 2008 in the US, the record topped the sales in both countries, demonstrating that free downloads do not affect sales of CDs. And that big labels are not essential. The recording industry was shocked. Many felt this was another death knell for the industry. An executive apparently said, “If the best band in the world doesn't want a part of us, I'm not sure what's left for this business.” Perhaps the industry needs to “actively examine alternative models through which we can understand the production and dissemination of knowledge and culture.” as Lawrence Liang put it (http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-suresh010205.htm). And also read Yochai Benkler Professor of Law at New York University School of Law.

Free Culture

“At the level of institutional design, the emergence of commons-based peer production adds a new and deep challenge to the prevailing policy of rapid expansion of the scope of exclusive rights in information and culture that has been the predominant approach in the past 25 years ” says Yochai Benkler (Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm, 2002). (He was talking about Free software that has emerged “as a substantial force in the software development world ”. Wikipedia was just a year old and was just beginning to take the first steps. Youtube was yet to be conceived.) This fact needs to be recognised, whether we like it or not. Modern technology, particularly IT, is enabling individuals to do many things themselves that earlier could be done only by professionals. Today, for instance, anyone with some skills in using a computer can easily create good-looking documents and print them out at home, even make exact copies and distribute, which was not even imaginable before computers became available freely and at such low prices. Today, school students are making movies with simple and relatively inexpensive equipment, and anyone with the time and the inclination can create an animation movie using pieces of Free Software. Such films may not be of sufficient quality for screening in large theatres, but today a lot of people see more films on their computers or television sets than in the theatres. We need to recognise that developments in technology are changing the way we do things, and this could pose a threat to establishments that have been in business for long, just as painters who used to hand paint sign boards were thrown out of their means of livelihood when these began to be printed. Or type setters lost their jobs to computers.

It is understandable that the culture industry would try to resist this to the best of their abilities just as the music industry, it is said, once tried to prevent the then new technology of the tape recorder because it threatened their existence. That, fortunately, did not happen. They would probably have been happy if every technological development that helped to free music from their clutches could have been banned. But it is clear that no one can stop new technology being introduced. With each new development, music became more accessible to the people – whether it be radio, tape recorder, cassette recorder, CD, flash drive or whatever. Today, it is a simple thing to carry a few thousand songs in your shirt pocket and listen to them wherever you are, whenever you want to. And digital technology has made it a simple matter to share songs, videos, films or whatever. Websites like Youtube allow people to upload their own videos so that anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can watch them. And some of them are now being used even by television channels!

And people have started making films and putting them up on web sites so that anyone can download and watch them. RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open source documentary film about “the changing concept of copyright” directed by Brett Gaylor. Created over a period of six years, the documentary film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to the Open Source Cinema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Cinema) website, helping to create the “world's first open source documentary” as Gaylor put it. Elephant's Dream, Big Buck Bunny, and Sintel were created by the Blender Foundation and put on the Net for anyone to download and use. The Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_film lists fifteen films that are free as in freedom, a couple of them in production. Not only are they freely downloadable, but their sources are also downloadable and reusable. So that, if anyone wants to, they can be mixed and matched to create a new film!

Digital technology brought about a revolution in the way we think, the way we learn and the way we do things. Free Software brought about a revolution in the way digital resources are created and distributed, freeing them from restrictions imposed by the creators. It converted the creation of software and other digital resources into a community affair, thus empowering the users and giving them a say in what shape the final product will take. But it also set up a wider revolution – another one in the way we think and the way we do things. Ideas like Wikipedia and Creative Commons are a consequence. The Chamba project indicates that this revolution is now reaching India too.

(This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Licence (CC by-sa) India 2.5. The article may be reproduced by anyone in any medium as it is or in modified form provided the source is indicated and this note is included. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/deed.en)

Beware of a Police State

Laws often tell us what not to do. And the state machinery is always present to ensure that we do not disobey. Sometimes laws also tell the state machinery what to do, though not always what not to do. And there aren't always effective mechanisms to ensure that they obey. People with power of any kind often tend to make use of all such mechanisms to take care of their vested interests. This is, perhaps, bound to happen where power gets concentrated in the hands of a few, and checks and balances are weak. Society has to be constantly alert and watchful to ensure that the misuse of power is avoided. Otherwise, a police state could be the result.

One of the areas where the law is now used to harass people is the copyright law. The first copyright law was introduced in England in 1710 under the name Anne's Statute. It gave the right for reproducing a work to the author for a maximum period of 28 years. The work then fell into the public domain. It was intended to be an incentive for creators so that the society benefits from their creativity. It was, in a sense, a favour given to creators so that society benefits. Unlike other rights such as the right to life or to freedom, this was and still is not recognised as a natural right. Over the years, copyright law has been modified in most parts of the world to benefit the copyright holder more. Interestingly, the right now rests more often with the publisher than with the author.

Apparently under pressure from copyright holders, governments have been extending the period for which "all rights are reserved" and today it extends to the ridiculous period of sixty years after the life of the author. This is obviously not meant to benefit the creator nor an incentive for him or her to create more. Then what could this be for? It could only be for copyright holders who are not the authors. And in what way could this benefit society? It can obviously benefit only some individuals or organisations. In practice, often the publishers who hold the copyright.

The American recording industry, for instance, has been threatening music fans who dare to share their music, and even do not hesitate to go to court against their customers in the name of copyright violation. Publishers of research journals corner all the rights while the work is done by researchers and funded by the public. Although it is recognised that all creative work builds on the existing, and each contribution is in reality a just small addition, people behave as though they have created from vacuum and whatever they did is their own. And that society should pay for it, totally forgetting that they never paid society for what they got from it. Thus, copyright that was originally meant for the benefit of society has now been turned against it. The latest instance of this comes from Brazil.

It seems that the police entered the premises of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and seized the material on the local copier. All this without any warrant and on the basis of an anonymous phone call. "The university community has expressed its complete rejection of the more unusual and disproportionate measure which violates the right to education and university autonomy" says a report here (Google translation).

This is the kind of thing that, if ignored, could eventually lead to the slow loss of our freedoms, and to the establishment of a police state. George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm could still become realities.

സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറും സ്വതന്ത്ര സമൂഹവും

This is an article that was published in the Malayalam magazine Asaamaanyamaaya Maneesha (അസാമാന്യമായ മനീഷ), or just Maneesha, in its February issue. The magazine is published from Thrissur and carried a few photographs taken by Ashik Salahudin along with the article.

സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറും സ്വതന്ത്ര സമൂഹവും
ഡോ. വി. ശശി കുമാര്‍

സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനേപ്പറ്റി കേട്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്തവര്‍ കേരളത്തില്‍ ചുരുക്കമായിരിക്കണം. ഇന്ത്യയിലെ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ഫൌണ്ടേഷന്‍ തിരുവനന്തപുരത്തുവെച്ചാണു് ശ്രീ റിച്ചാഡ് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ 2001ല്‍ ഉത്‌ഘാടനം ചെയ്തതു്. പിന്നീടു് കേരളത്തിലെ സ്ക്കൂളുകളില്‍ ഐ.റ്റി. പഠിപ്പിക്കാന്‍ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കാന്‍ തുടങ്ങി. ഇപ്പോഴാണെങ്കില്‍ സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ ഐ.റ്റി. നയത്തില്‍ തന്നെ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പ്രോത്സാഹിപ്പിക്കും എന്നു് പ്രഖ്യാപിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടു്. സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ വകുപ്പുകളിലുപയോഗിക്കുന്ന കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുകള്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലേക്ക് മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കയാണു്. 2008 ഡിസംബര്‍ 9 മുതല്‍ 11 വരെ തിരുവനന്തപുരത്തുവെച്ചു് "സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍, സ്വതന്ത്ര സമൂഹം'' എന്ന വിഷയത്തേക്കുറിച്ചു് ഒരു അന്തര്‍ദ്ദേശീയ സമ്മേളനം നടന്നു. ഇതിനും സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ തന്നെയാണു് മുന്‍കൈ എടുത്തതു്. ഈ പശ്ചാത്തലത്തില്‍ എന്താണീ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍, എന്താണീ സ്വതന്ത്ര സമൂഹം തുടങ്ങിയ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ നമുക്കു് പരിശോധിക്കാം.

സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍

ഉപയോക്താക്കള്‍ക്കു് സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം നല്‍കുന്ന സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാണു് സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍. നാലു സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങളാണു് സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ നല്‍കുന്നതു്. എത്ര കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുകളില്‍ വേണമെങ്കിലും ഏതാവശ്യത്തിനും ഉപയോഗിക്കാനുള്ള സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യമാണു് ആദ്യത്തേതു്. നിശ്ചിത എണ്ണം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുകളില്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കാനുള്ള അനുവാദം മാത്രമെ ഉടമസ്ഥാവകാശമുള്ള (proprietary) സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ നല്‍കുന്നുള്ളൂ എന്നറിയാമല്ലോ. പകര്‍ത്തി മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ക്കു് നല്‍കാനുള്ള സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യമാണു് രണ്ടാമത്തതു്. സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിന്റെ പ്രവര്‍ത്തനം പഠിക്കാനും വേണമെങ്കില്‍ അതില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്താനുമുള്ളതാണു് മൂന്നാമത്തെ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം. ഇതു് സാധ്യമാകണമെങ്കില്‍ പ്രോഗ്രാമിന്റെ മൂലരൂപമായ സോഴ്‌സ് കോഡ് (source code) ലഭ്യമായേ പറ്റൂ. അതുകൊണ്ടു് എല്ലാ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിന്റെയും മൂലരൂപം ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റില്‍ ലഭ്യമാണു്. ഇങ്ങനെ മാറ്റം വരുത്തിയ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പുനര്‍വിതരണം ചെയ്യാനുള്ളതാണു് നാലാമത്തെ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം. ഈ നാലു സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങളും നല്‍കുന്ന സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനെ മാത്രമെ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ എന്നു പറയൂ. ഈ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങളൊന്നും തന്നെ നാം പണം കൊടുത്തു വാങ്ങുന്ന ഉടമസ്ഥാവകാശമുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ നമുക്കു നല്‍കുന്നില്ല എന്നതു വ്യക്തമാണല്ലോ.

സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ അറിവു പോലെയാണെന്നും അറിവെന്നപോലെ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറും സ്വതന്ത്രമായിരിക്കണമെന്നുമുള്ള ആശയത്തിന്റെ അടിസ്ഥാനത്തിലാണു് സ്വതന്ത്രമായി ഉപയോഗിക്കാനും പകര്‍ന്നുകൊടുക്കാനും മറ്റും അനുവാദമുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ സൃഷ്ടിക്കാന്‍ റിച്ചാഡ് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ ‌ തീരുമാനിച്ചതു്. ലോകപ്രശസ്ത സാങ്കേതിക വിദ്യാലയമായ എം.ഐ.റ്റി. (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology) യില്‍ പ്രവര്‍ത്തിയെടുത്തിരുന്ന കാലത്തായിരുന്നു അദ്ദേഹം ഈ തീരുമാനമെടുത്തതു്. 1983ല്‍ അദ്ദേഹം സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ സൃഷ്ടിക്കാനായി ഗ്നു (GNU) എന്ന പ്രോജക്റ്റ് തുടങ്ങുകയും 1985ല്‍ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പ്രചരിപ്പിക്കാനായി ഫ്രീ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ഫൌണ്ടേഷന്‍ എന്ന പ്രസ്ഥാനം ആരംഭിക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു. സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തോടുകൂടി വിതരണം ചെയ്യാനുള്ള ലൈസന്‍സും അദ്ദേഹം വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്തു. അതാണു് ഇന്നു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനു് ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന ലൈസന്‍സായ ജി.പി.എല്‍. (ജനറല്‍ പബ്ലിക് ലൈസന്‍സ്).

സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പ്രസ്ഥാനം തുടങ്ങിയതിനു പിന്നില്‍ രസകരമായ ഒരു കഥയുണ്ടു്. അദ്ദേഹം എം.ഐ.റ്റിയില്‍ പ്രവര്‍ത്തിച്ചുകൊണ്ടിരുന്ന കാലത്തു് സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പൊതുവെ സ്വതന്ത്രമായിരുന്നു. കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നവര്‍ പ്രോഗ്രാമുകള്‍ പരസ്പരം കൈമാറുമായിരുന്നു. എം.ഐ.റ്റിയിലെ ലാബില്‍ അവരുപയോഗിച്ചിരുന്നതു് അവര്‍തന്നെ വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറായിരുന്നു, ഓപ്പറേറ്റിംഗ് സിസ്റ്റമുള്‍പ്പോടെ. അവരുടെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുകള്‍ ശൃംഘലയായി (network) പരസ്പരം ബന്ധിച്ചിരുന്നു. അവരുപയോഗിച്ചിരുന്ന പ്രിന്ററും ശൃംഘലയുടെ ഭാഗമായിരുന്നു. എല്ലാ പ്രിന്ററുകളെയും പോലെ ഇതിനും ഒരു പ്രശ്നമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു -- ഇടയ്ക്കിടയ്ക്കു് കടലാസ് കുരുങ്ങുക. തല്‍ഫലമായി എന്തെങ്കിലും പ്രിന്റ് ചെയ്യാന്‍ കൊടുത്തിട്ടു് കുറേക്കഴിഞ്ഞു് ചെന്നു നോക്കുമ്പോള്‍ പ്രിന്റര്‍ നശ്ചലമായി ഇരിക്കുന്നതാണു് കാണുക. കുരുങ്ങിയ കടലാസു മാറ്റിയിട്ടു് തിരിച്ചുപോകുകയേ അപ്പോള്‍ മാര്‍ഗ്ഗമുള്ളൂ. ഇങ്ങനെ പല തവണ സംഭവിച്ചാല്‍ ആര്‍ക്കായാലും ദേഷ്യം വരില്ലേ? ഇതിനൊരു പരിഹാരം കാണാന്‍ സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ ആഗ്രഹിച്ചു. അതിനദ്ദേഹം ഒരു വഴി കണ്ടെത്തുകയും ചെയ്തു. പ്രിന്ററിനെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുമായി ബന്ധിപ്പിക്കുന്ന സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാണു് അതിന്റെ ഡ്രൈവര്‍ എന്നറിയപ്പെടുന്നതു്. ഇതില്‍ അദ്ദേഹം രണ്ടു് മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍ വരുത്തി. ഒരാള്‍ ആവശ്യപ്പെട്ട പേജുകള്‍ പ്രിന്റ് ചെയ്തു കഴിഞ്ഞാല്‍ ആ വിവരം അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറില്‍ ഒരു സന്ദേശമായി തെളിയും എന്നതാണു് ഒന്നു്. അതുപോലെ, പ്രിന്ററില്‍ കടലാസുടക്കിക്കഴിഞ്ഞാല്‍ പ്രിന്റു ചെയ്യാന്‍ നിര്‍ദ്ദേശം നല്‍കിയ എല്ലാവരുടെയും കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറില്‍ ഈ വിവരം സന്ദേശമായി തെളിയും എന്നതാണു് രണ്ടാമത്തെ മാറ്റം കൊണ്ടു് സാധിച്ചതു്.

അങ്ങനെയിരിക്കെ റാങ്ക് ക്സീറോക്സ് കോര്‍പ്പറേഷന്‍ (Rank Xerox Corporation) അവര്‍ക്കൊരു പുതിയ പ്രിന്റര്‍ നല്കി. മേല്പറഞ്ഞ വിദ്യകള്‍ അതിലും നടപ്പാക്കണം എന്നു് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാനു് ആഗ്രഹമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. എന്നാല്‍ പുതിയ പ്രിന്ററിനുള്ള ഡ്രൈവറിന്റെ മൂലരൂപം (മനുഷ്യര്‍ക്കു വായിക്കാവുന്ന രൂപം, source code) അദ്ദേഹത്തിനു ലഭിച്ചില്ല. അതന്വേഷിച്ചുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കെയാണു് ഡ്രൈവര്‍ രചിച്ച വ്യക്തി അടുത്തുള്ള മറ്റൊരു സര്‍വ്വകലാശാലയില്‍ വരുന്നുണ്ടെന്ന വിവരം സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ അറിഞ്ഞതു്. അങ്ങനെ ഒരിക്കല്‍ അവിടെ പോയപ്പോള്‍ ആ വ്യക്തിയെ കണ്ടു് അദ്ദേഹം ഡ്രൈവറിന്റെ മൂലരൂപം ആവശ്യപ്പെട്ടു. എന്നാല്‍ തികച്ചും അപ്രതീക്ഷിതമായ മറുപടിയാണു് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാനു് ലഭിച്ചതു്. കമ്പനിയുമായി "നോണ്‍ ഡിസ്‌ക്ലോഷര്‍ എഗ്രിമെന്റ'' ഒപ്പിട്ടിട്ടുള്ളതുകൊണ്ടു് അതു തരാനാകില്ല എന്നായിരുന്നു മറുപടി. ഇത്തരം എഗ്രിമെന്റുകളേപ്പറ്റി സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ കേട്ടിരുന്നു. അവയോടു് അദ്ദേഹത്തിനും മറ്റു പല പ്രോഗ്രാമര്‍മാര്‍ക്കും ശക്തമായ എതിര്‍പ്പുമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. എന്തായാലും അന്നത്തെ സാഹചര്യത്തില്‍ വാതില്‍ വലിച്ചടച്ചു് ഇറങ്ങിപ്പോന്നു എന്നാണു് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ തന്നെ പിന്നീടു് എഴുതിയതു്. അതേത്തുടര്‍ന്നാണു് ആര്‍ക്കും പങ്കുവയ്ക്കാനും മാറ്റം വരുത്താനും മറ്റും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യമുള്ള ഓപ്പറേറ്റിങ് സിസ്റ്റവും (കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിന്റെ പ്രവര്‍ത്തനം നിയന്ത്രിക്കുന്ന സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍) ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകളും ഉണ്ടാക്കണമെന്നു് അദ്ദേഹം തീരുമാനിച്ചതു്.

ഗ്നു പ്രോജക്ട് തുടങ്ങിയിട്ടു് ഇപ്പോള്‍ കാല്‍ നൂറ്റാണ്ടു് പിന്നിട്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ആദ്യകാലത്തു് സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ ഒറ്റയ്ക്കായിരുന്നെങ്കിലും ഇപ്പോള്‍ ലോകത്തെമ്പാടുമുള്ള പതിനായിരക്കണക്കിനു് പ്രോഗ്രാമര്‍മാരാണു് സ്വതന്ത്രസോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ സൃഷ്ടിക്കാനായി പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്നതു്. ഗ്നു ലിനക്സ് ആണു് ഇന്നേറ്റവും പ്രചാരമുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്ര ഓപ്പറേറ്റിങ്ങ് സിസ്റ്റം. കൂടാതെ ഫ്രീ ബി.എസ്.ഡി., ഓപ്പണ്‍ ബി.എസ്.ഡി., ഓപ്പണ്‍ സൊളാരിസ്, എന്നിങ്ങനെ പല സ്വതന്ത്ര ഓപ്പറേറ്റിങ് സിസ്റ്റങ്ങളുമുണ്ടു്.

"പ്രോഗ്രാമിങ്ങ് അറിയാത്ത എനിക്കു് ഇത്തരം സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങള്‍ കൊണ്ടു് എന്തു പ്രയോജനം'' എന്നു പലരും ചിന്തിക്കാം. ഇതിനു് രണ്ടു് ഉത്തരങ്ങളുണ്ടു്. സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറില്‍ എനിക്കു് മാറ്റം വരുത്താനാവില്ലെങ്കിലും വേണമെങ്കില്‍ അതറിയാവുന്ന ഒരാളേക്കൊണ്ടു് എനിക്കാവശ്യമായ മാറ്റം വരുത്തിക്കാനാവും എന്നതാണൊന്നു്. ഇങ്ങനെ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്തേണ്ട ആവശ്യം വ്യക്തികള്‍ക്കു് ഉണ്ടാവാന്‍ സാധ്യതയില്ലെങ്കിലും പല സ്ഥാപനങ്ങള്‍ക്കു് വേണ്ടിവരാമല്ലോ. പക്ഷെ എല്ലാവര്‍ക്കും പ്രയോജനം ചെയ്യുന്ന മറ്റൊരു കാര്യമുണ്ടു്. ഒരു സമൂഹത്തിനു തന്നെ ആവശ്യമായ മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറില്‍ വരുത്താനാവും എന്നതാണതു്. ഉദാഹരണമായി കേരളത്തിലെ കുറേ വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥികളും മറ്റും ചേര്‍ന്നു് ഗ്നു ലിനക്സ് ഓപ്പറേറ്റിങ്ങ് സിസ്റ്റം മലയാളത്തിലാക്കിയിട്ടുണ്ടു്. അതുകൊണ്ടു് മലയാളം മാത്രമറിയാവുന്നവര്‍ക്കും കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ഇന്നു് പ്രാപ്യമാണു്. ഇതിനായി സ്വതന്ത്ര മലയാളം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടിങ്ങ് എന്ന ഒരു സംഘടന തന്നെ നിലവില്‍ വന്നിട്ടുണ്ടു്. സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പുതുക്കുന്നതനുസരിച്ചു് അതൊക്കെ ഇവര്‍ മലയാളത്തിലാക്കിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. കൂടാതെ മലയാളം ടൈപ്പുചെയ്യാനുള്ള സൌകര്യങ്ങള്‍, കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിലുപയോഗിക്കാവുന്ന മലയാളം ഡിക്‌ഷ്ണറി, തുടങ്ങിയവ തയാറാക്കുകയും ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നു. ഇതെല്ലാം സാദ്ധ്യമായതു് സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിന്റെ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം കൊണ്ടുമാത്രമാണെന്നു വ്യക്തമാണല്ലൊ.

സ്വാതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിന്റെ മെച്ചം

മേല്പറഞ്ഞ ഗുണങ്ങളൊക്കെയുണ്ടെങ്കിലും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കാന്‍ മെച്ചപ്പെട്ടതാണോ എന്നു് പലര്‍ക്കും സംശയമുണ്ടാകാം. ഒരു കമ്പനിയൊന്നുമുണ്ടാക്കാത്ത ഇത്തരം ഉല്പന്നങ്ങളുടെ ഗുണനിലവാരം കുറവാവില്ലേ എന്നു് ന്യായമായും സംശയിക്കാം. എന്നാല്‍ ഏറ്റവും പ്രചാരത്തിലുള്ള മൈക്രോസോഫ്റ്റ് വിന്‍ഡോസിനേക്കാള്‍ പല തരത്തില്‍ മെച്ചപ്പെട്ടതാണു് ഇന്നേറ്റവും പ്രചാരമുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്ര ഓപ്പറേറ്റിങ്ങ് സിസ്റ്റമായ ഗ്നു ലിനക്സ്. ഇതിനെ ബാധിക്കുന്ന വൈറസുകള്‍ ഏതാണ്ടില്ല എന്നു തന്നെ പറയാം. പിന്നെ സാധാരണഗതിയില്‍ സിസ്റ്റം ക്രാഷ് ചെയ്യുകയില്ല. മള്‍ട്ടി യൂസര്‍ സൌകര്യമുണ്ടു്, അതായതു് പലര്‍ക്കു് ഒരേ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കാം, പക്ഷെ അപ്പോഴും ഓരോരുത്തരുടെയും ഫയലുകള്‍ സുരക്ഷിതമായിത്തന്നെ ഇരിക്കും. ഇങ്ങനെ പല മെച്ചങ്ങളും ഗ്നു ലിനക്സിനുണ്ടു്.

ഇനി ഇതിലെന്തെല്ലാം ഉപയോഗങ്ങള്‍ക്കുള്ള ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകളുണ്ടു് എന്നു പരിശോധിക്കാം. സാധാരണക്കാര്‍ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുവയോഗിച്ചു ചെയ്യുന്ന എല്ലാ കാര്യങ്ങളും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറുപയോഗിച്ചു ചെയ്യാനാവും. ഓഫീസാവശ്യത്തിനുള്ള വേഡ് പ്രോസസര്‍, സ്പ്രെഡ്‌ഷീറ്റ്, പ്രസന്റേഷന്‍, ഇമെയ്ല്‍, വെബ്‌ബ്രൌസിങ്, ഫോട്ടോ എഡിറ്റിങ്, തുടങ്ങിയ ആവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ക്കെല്ലാം ഒന്നിലധികം ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകളുണ്ടു്. ഇവയില്‍ ചിലതെങ്കിലും സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത കമേഴ്സ്യല്‍ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനേക്കാള്‍ മെയ്യപ്പെട്ടതുമാണു്. ഉദാഹരണമായി, വെബ്‌ബ്രൌസറായ ഫയര്‍ഫോക്സിന്റെ പ്രചാരം വളരെ വേഗം ഏറിവരികയാണു്. ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് എക്സ്‌പ്ലോറര്‍ മാത്രമാണു് മുന്നിലുള്ളതു്. അതുപയോഗിച്ചിരുന്നവര്‍ പോലും ഫയര്‍ഫോക്സിലേക്കു് മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കയാണു്.

അതുപോലെ സവിശേഷാവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ക്കുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറുകളും സ്വതന്ത്രമായതു ലഭ്യമാണു്. ഉദാഹരണമായി, ശബ്ദഫയലുകളില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്താന്‍ സഹായിക്കുന്ന എഡിറ്ററുകള്‍, വിഡിയോ എഡിറ്ററുകള്‍, സംഗീതം സൃഷ്ടിക്കാനുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍, ത്രിമാന അനിമേഷനുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ തുടങ്ങിയവയും ലഭ്യമാണു്. സര്‍ക്കാരുകളും, ബിസിനസുകളും വ്യവസായങ്ങളും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലേക്കു് മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ഉദാഹരണമായി, ജര്‍മ്മനിയിലെ മ്യൂണിക്ക് നഗരസഭ ​ഏതാനും വര്‍ഷം മുമ്പു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലേക്കു് മാറാന്‍ തീരുമാനിച്ചു. സ്പെയ്‌നിലെ എക്സ്‌ട്രെമദുര പ്രവിശ്യ ആദ്യം സ്ക്കൂളുകളും പിന്നെ ആപ്പീസുകളും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലേക്കു് മാറ്റി. തമിഴ്‌ നാട്ടിലെ എല്‍ക്കോട്ട് (ELCOT) എന്ന സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ സ്ഥാപനം ആദ്യം മാറി, പിന്നീടു് തമിഴ്‌നാട്ടിലെ പല സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളും മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. നമ്മുടെ എല്‍.ഐ.സി. ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാണു്. കേരളത്തിലെ സ്ക്കൂളുകളെല്ലാം ഐ.റ്റി.~വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിനു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതു കൂടാതെ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളും മാറിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ഉദാഹരണമായി, ഖാദി ബോര്‍ഡിന്റെ പ്രവര്‍ത്തനം ഇപ്പോള്‍ പൂര്‍ണ്ണമായി സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലാണു്. വൈദ്യുത ബോര്‍ഡിന്റെ ബില്ലിങ്ങിനുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ബോര്‍ഡിലെ തന്നെ ചിലര്‍ ചേര്‍ന്നു വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്ത ``ഒരുമ'' എന്ന സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാണു്. പല എഞ്ചിനീയറിങ് കോളജുകളും കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ലാബുകളില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാക്കിയിട്ടുണ്ടു്, എറണാകുളത്തെ മോഡല്‍ എഞ്ചിനീയറിങ് കോളജ്, തൃശൂരുള്ള ഗവണ്മെന്റ് എഞ്ചിനീയറിങ് കോളജ്, കുറ്റിപ്പുറത്തെ എം.ഇ.എസ്. കോളജ്, തിരുവനന്തപുരത്തെ ബാര്‍ട്ടണ്‍ ഹില്‍ കോളജ് എന്നിവ ഏതാനും ഉദാഹരണങ്ങളാണു്. കേരളത്തിലെ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പ്രവര്‍ത്തകരില്‍ നല്ലൊരു വിഭാഗം വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥികളാണു് എന്നതു് പ്രതീക്ഷയ്ക്കു വക നല്‍കുന്ന കാര്യമാണു്.

സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിലൂടെയുള്ള സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിന്റെ ഈ മുന്നേറ്റം മറ്റു പല രംഗങ്ങളെയും സ്വാധീനിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടു്. അവയില്‍ ചിലതു് നമുക്കിനി പരിശോധിക്കാം.

അറിവിനും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം

അറിവു് സ്വതന്ത്രമായിരിക്കണം എന്ന ആശയം തന്നെയാണു് പൊതുജനങ്ങളുടെ സഹകരണത്തോടെ നിര്‍മ്മിച്ചെടുത്ത വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയ (Wikipedia) എന്ന സ്വതന്ത്ര വിജ്ഞാനകോശത്തിന്റെ തുടക്കത്തിനും കാരണമായതു്. ബോമിസ് (Bomis) എന്ന കമ്പനിയുടെ ഉടമയായ ജിമ്മി വെയ്‌ല്‍സാണു് വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയ തുടങ്ങിയതു്. ബോമിസാണു് അതിന്റെ ചെലവുകള്‍ വഹിച്ചതും. ആര്‍ക്കുവേണമെങ്കില്‍ വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയിലെ ലേഖനങ്ങളില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്താം. പുതിയ ലേഖനങ്ങള്‍ എഴുതുകയുമാവാം. ഒന്നു് രജിസ്റ്റര്‍ ചെയ്യണമെന്നു മാത്രം. അതിനു് ചെലവില്ലതാനും. വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയിലുള്ള ലേഖനങ്ങള്‍ ആര്‍ക്കും പകര്‍ത്തിയെടുക്കുകയും എന്താവശ്യത്തിനും ഉപയോഗിക്കുകയുമാവാം. ഈ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം അതിലെ ചിത്രങ്ങള്‍ക്കും ബാധകമാണു്. വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയിലുള്ള വിഭവങ്ങളൊന്നും തന്നെ പകര്‍പ്പവകാശനിയമമനുസരിച്ചു് നിയന്ത്രിതമല്ല. സ്വതന്ത്ര എന്‍സൈക്ലോപ്പീഡിയ എന്ന ആശയം ആദ്യം കൊണ്ടുവന്നതും സ്റ്റാള്‍മാന്‍ തന്നെയാണു് എന്നതു് രസാവഹമാണു്, നടപ്പിലാക്കിയതു് ജിമ്മി വെയ്ല്‍സാണെങ്കിലും.

ഇന്നു് വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയില്‍ ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് ഭാഷയില്‍ മാത്രം 25 ലക്ഷത്തിലധികം ലേഖനങ്ങളുണ്ടു്. ആകെ 250ലധികം ഭാഷകളില്‍ ലേഖനങ്ങളുണ്ടു്. ഇവയില്‍ മലയാളവും മറ്റു പല ഇന്ത്യന്‍ ഭാഷകളും ഉള്‍പ്പെടും. ഇന്ത്യന്‍ ഭാഷകളില്‍ ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ ലേഖനങ്ങളുള്ളതു് തെലുങ്കിലാണു് -- 41,000ലധികം. മലയാളം പിന്നിലാണു്, ഏതാണ്ടു് 9,000ല്‍ താഴെ ലേഖനങ്ങളേയുള്ളൂ. ലോകത്തിലേറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കപ്പെടുന്ന വിജ്ഞാനകോശമാണു് വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയ. അതിന്റെ നിലവാരവും വളരെ ഉയര്‍ന്നതാണെന്നു് ഒരു പഠനമെങ്കിലും തെളിയിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടു്. പ്രശസ്ത ശാസ്ത്രപ്രസിദ്ധീകരണമായ "നേച്ചര്‍'' (nature) നടത്തിയ പഠനത്തില്‍ കണ്ടതു്, ബ്രിട്ടാനിക്കയില്‍ ഒരു ലേഖനത്തില്‍ ശരാശരി മൂന്നു തെറ്റുകള്‍ ഉള്ളപ്പോള്‍ വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയില്‍ ശരാശരി നാലു തെറ്റുകള്‍ കണ്ടു എന്നാണു്.

ഈ ഡിജിറ്റല്‍ യുഗത്തില്‍ അറിവു് എന്നു പറയുമ്പോള്‍ വിജ്ഞാനകോശത്തിലുള്ളതു പോലത്തെ അറിവു മാത്രമല്ല ഉദ്ദേശിക്കുന്നതു്. കഥയും സംഗീതവും ചലച്ചിത്രങ്ങളും ഒക്കെ "അറിവാ''യിട്ടാണു് കണക്കാക്കുന്നതു്. എല്ലാ അറിവും ഡിജിറ്റല്‍ രൂപത്തിലായിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുകയാണല്ലോ. ഇപ്പോള്‍ സംഗീതവും ചിത്രങ്ങളും ചലച്ചിത്രങ്ങളും എല്ലാം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിലൂടെ ആസ്വദിക്കാനാവുമല്ലോ. ഡിജിറ്റല്‍ രൂപത്തിലാകുമ്പോള്‍ ഇത്തരം വിഭവങ്ങള്‍ പകര്‍ത്തുന്നതും മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ക്കെത്തിക്കുന്നതും മറ്റും വളരെ ചെലവു കുറഞ്ഞതും എളുപ്പവുമുള്ള കാര്യമാകും. എന്നാല്‍ പകര്‍പ്പവകാശനിയമം ഇതിനു് തടസമായി നില്‍ക്കുന്നുണ്ടു്. ഇതിനൊരു പോംവഴിയായിട്ടാണു് 'ക്രിയേറ്റീവ് കോമണ്‍സ്' എന്ന ആശയമുണ്ടായതു്. സ്റ്റാന്‍ഫഡ് സര്‍വ്വകലാശാലയിലെ നിയമാദ്ധ്യാപകനായ പ്രൊഫ. ലോറന്‍സ് ലെസ്സിഗാണു് ഇതിനു് തുടക്കം കുറിച്ചതു്. പകര്‍പ്പവകാശത്തിന്റെ കടുത്ത നയന്ത്രണമില്ലാതെ സ്വന്തം സൃഷ്ടികള്‍ വിതരണം ചെയ്യണമെന്നു് ആഗ്രഹമുള്ളവര്‍ക്കു് അതിനു് സഹായിക്കുന്ന ലൈസന്‍സുകള്‍ അദ്ദേഹം വികസിപ്പിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടു്. കൂടുതല്‍ വിവരങ്ങള്‍ http://creativecommons.org എന്ന വെബ്സൈറ്റില്‍ നിന്നും ലഭ്യമാണു്. ഇത്തരമൊരു ലൈസന്‍സിലാണു് ഈ ലേഖനവും പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നതു്.

സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം മറ്റു രംഗങ്ങളില്‍

മേല്‍വിവരിച്ച സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യമെന്ന ആശയം മറ്റു പല രംഗങ്ങളിലും മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍ വരുത്തിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ഗവേഷണഫലങ്ങളുടെ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരണമാണു് ഒരു ഉദാഹരണം. പണ്ടു മുതല്‍ക്കേ തങ്ങളുടെ കണ്ടെത്തലുകള്‍ ലോകത്തെ അറിയിക്കുന്നതില്‍ താല്പര്യമുള്ള ഒരു സമൂഹമാണു് ശാസ്ത്രസമൂഹം. ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഗവേഷണത്തിനുവേണ്ടി ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ മുതല്‍മുടക്കുന്നതു് സര്‍ക്കാരാണു്, അതായതു് ജനങ്ങളാണു്. ഇവരുടെ പ്രയത്നത്തിലൂടെ അറിവാകുന്ന വിവരങ്ങള്‍ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരണത്തിനായി എഴുതിത്തയാറാക്കുന്നതു് ഇവര്‍തന്നെയാണു്. പ്രസിദ്ധീകരണയോഗ്യമായവ തിരഞ്ഞെടുക്കുന്നതു് മറ്റു ശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞരാണു്. എന്നാല്‍ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ചു കഴിയുമ്പോള്‍ പകര്‍പ്പവകാശം പ്രസാധകരുടേതായിത്തീരുന്നു. മറ്റു ശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞര്‍ക്കു പോലും അതു വായിക്കാന്‍ പണം കൊടുക്കേണ്ടി വരുന്നു. ഇതിനെ എതിര്‍ക്കുന്ന ഒരു പ്രസ്ഥാനമാണു് ഓപ്പണ്‍ അക്സസ് പ്രസ്ഥാനം. ഗവേഷണപ്രബന്ധങ്ങള്‍ രചിക്കുന്നവര്‍ തന്നെ അതു് ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റിലിടുക, ജേര്‍ണലുകളുടെ പ്രസാധകര്‍ ലേഖനങ്ങള്‍ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റിലിടുക എന്നിങ്ങനെ രണ്ടു പരിഹാരങ്ങളാണു് പ്രസ്ഥാനം മുന്നോട്ടു വയ്ക്കുന്നതു്. വിശദവിവരങ്ങള്‍ http://plos.org, http://www.soros.org/openaccess തുടങ്ങിയ സൈറ്റുകളില്‍നിന്നു ലഭിക്കും.

ബിസിനസ് രംഗത്തു് ഈ ആശയങ്ങള്‍ എങ്ങനെ പ്രയോഗിക്കാമെന്നു് പരീക്ഷണം നടത്തുകയാണു് പൂണെയിലെ ഒരു കൂട്ടര്‍ (http://www.wikiocean.net കാണുക). എന്നാല്‍ ഏറ്റവും രസാവഹമായി തോന്നുന്നതു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറും വിക്കിപ്പീഡിയയുമെല്ലാം പുതുതായി രൂപപ്പെട്ടുവരുന്ന ഒരു ഉല്പാദനമാതൃകയുടെ ഉദാഹരണങ്ങളായി കാണുന്ന ഒയ്‌ക്കണക്സ് (Oekonux), P2P ഫൌണ്ടേഷന്‍ എന്നീ കൂട്ടങ്ങളാണു്. ലോകത്തിന്റെ സ്വഭാവത്തെ ഇതു് ക്രമേണ മാറ്റിമറിക്കും എന്നവര്‍ പറയുന്നു. മുതലാളിത്തത്തിലെ പ്രശ്നങ്ങള്‍ രൂക്ഷമാകുകയും അനിയന്ത്രിതമായ വികസനം എന്ന മുതലാളിത്തത്തിന്റെ കാഴ്ചപ്പാടു് നിലനില്‍ക്കുന്നതല്ല എന്നു തിരിച്ചറിയുകയും ചെയ്യുമ്പോള്‍ പാരസ്പര്യത്തിന്റെ ഈ ഉല്പാദനരീതി പ്രബലമാകുകയും മുതലാളിത്തത്തില്‍ നിന്നു് ഉല്പാദനകര്‍മ്മം ക്രമേണ ഏറ്റെടുക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുമെന്നു് ഇവര്‍ വിശ്വസിക്കുന്നു.

അച്ചടി നിലവില്‍വന്ന ഒരു കാലഘട്ടത്തിനു വേണ്ടിയാണു് പകര്‍പ്പവകാശ നിയമം ഉണ്ടാക്കിയതു്. ഇന്നത്തെ പുതിയ സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യയുടെ സാദ്ധ്യതകള്‍ മുഴുവനും സമൂഹനന്മയ്ക്കായി ഉപയോഗപ്പെടുത്തുന്നതിനു് ഈ നിയമം തടസം നില്‍ക്കുകയാണു്. സൃഷ്ടികര്‍ത്താക്കള്‍ക്കു് പ്രതിഫലം ലഭ്യമാക്കുന്നതിനു് പകര്‍പ്പവകാശ നിയമത്തിന്റെ ആവശ്യമില്ല. അതിനു് സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം തടസപ്പെടുത്താത്ത മാര്‍ഗ്ഗങ്ങള്‍ ഇന്നത്തെ സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യയ്ക്കു് നല്‍കാനാകും. നമ്മുടെ കാഴ്ചപ്പാടില്‍ മാറ്റം വരണമെന്നു മാത്രം. അങ്ങനെ പുതിയ കാഴ്ചപ്പാടുള്ള ഒരു സമൂഹത്തെയാണു് നാം സ്വതന്ത്രസമൂഹം എന്നു വിളിക്കുന്നതു്.

(ഈ ലേഖനം ക്രിയേറ്റീവ് കോമണ്‍സ് ‌Attribution Share Alike (by sa) 2.5 India ‌ലൈസന്‍സില്‍ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. ഈ കുറിപ്പുകൂടി ഉള്‍‍പ്പെടുത്തുന്ന പക്ഷം ഈ ലേഖനം ഏതു മാധ്യമത്തിലും ഇതേ രൂപത്തിലോ മാറ്റം വരുത്തിയോ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിക്കുന്നതിനു് പ്രത്യേക അനുവാദം ആവശ്യമില്ല. ഈ ലൈസന്‍സിനേക്കുറിച്ചുള്ള കൂടുതല്‍ വിവരങ്ങള്‍ ‌ http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/ ‌എന്ന വെബ് പേജില്‍ ലഭ്യമാണു്)

A New Wave of Freedom

This is an article that was published in the May 10- 23, 2008, issue of Frontline (see http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20080523251008900.htm), but without their editorial corrections. The major editorial changes are in the sub-headings. It was published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 licence.

A New Wave of Freedom

Dr. V. Sasi Kumar

Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral. — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

India became a Sovereign Republic on 26 January 1950. India became free. Or, more precisely, political power was transferred from the British to Indians. That was a period when a number of countries that were living under the yoke of imperialism broke free. Politically, that is. We still do not enjoy certain freedoms that we deserve. A new wave of freedom movements, to achieve these freedoms, is now sweeping the world—a movement that is bound to change the way we think, the way we do things and the way we interact. This time it started from the United States and is aiming to free people from the clutches of monopoly corporations. And the role of Gandhiji is being played by an extraordinary person with long hair and a long beard; a man named Richard Mathew Stallman, though he vehemently rejects any comparison with Gandhiji or Nelson Mandela.

“Till we are fully free, we are slaves”, said Gandhiji. Developments in technologyhave made it possible for mankind to enjoy greater freedom in certain ways. However, vested interests, with help from legislators, are now succeeding in preventing society from enjoying this freedom. For instance, with the advent of the computer and the Internet, it has become possible for data, information and knowledge to be communicated instantaneously, provided a computer with Internet connection is available at both ends. However, some of our laws that were designed for an earlier era are preventing society from benefiting fully from this technology. The new freedom movement is finding means to circumvent these laws. And, interestingly, this movement is not led by political parties or activists, but, of all people, by computer programmers (or hackers). Let us look at some of the ways in which our freedoms are being curtailed, and how there are ways in which we can regain our freedom even within the existing paradigm.

Freedom in Software

When you switch on your computer, you are making a political statement. This may sound absurd, trying to find politics in even mundane matters. But this is a fact. In the early days of the computer, users used to write their own programs and they used to exchange these programs according to need. No one used to keep exclusive rights to the programs. Those days, computers were big and expensive, often occupying their own rooms, but were relatively much less powerful compared even to today’s small PCs. As technology developed, computers became smaller and, interestingly, more powerful. It was around the early 1980s, that computer manufacturers started enforcing what was called a non-disclosure agreement on programmers who were engaged to write software for their computers. These agreements prevented programmers from disclosing the human-readable source-code of the programs. And software became a product for which users had to pay. Of course, some users continued to write programs for their own purpose, which some people still continue to do, but ready-made programs became available on payment that computer users increasingly started using. It was as a reaction to this productisation of software that Richard Stallman, then working in the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, decided to create an operating system (OS) and applications that gave users freedom. He believed that software is like knowledge (as he often says, like a recipe) and, like knowledge, software should not be the property of any individual or organisation. It should belong to all humanity. Stallman wrote:

“What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens—for example, programs that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can’t study or change. Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives.” (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html)

As a result, he started a project that he named GNU to create Free Software, and he decided to model his Free operating system on the then very popular Unix. Unix was a proprietary OS that could handle multiple users simultaneously, could be used to interconnect computers, and was very secure. In those days, many programmers used to name a new program that was similar to an existing one by creating an acronym saying this is not that. Thus, for instance, a new text editor similar to the existing Emacs editor was called eine for Eine Is Not Emacs. In a similar manner, he called his new OS by the name GNU for GNU is Not Unix. This was later used along with the Linux kernel (the core part of an OS) and thus was born the GNU/Linux OS. We now have different

kernels that can be used along with GNU software, such as Free BSD, Open Solaris and so on.

“Free Software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word ‘free’ in Free Software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero-cost. Think of Free Software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software.” (see www.fsf.org.in). Free Software is software that gives users four freedoms, namely,

1. Freedom to use on any number of computers for any purpose;
2. Freedom to share the software with your family and friends;
3. Freedom to study and modify the software; and
4. Freedom to redistribute the modified software.

The third freedom means that the so-called source code (the human-readable text) of the programs should be available to any user who wants it. But one may wonder what use it is to the users. While most users may not be able to even study and understand the program, let alone modify it, this freedom makes it possible for anyone to get a programmer to modify it, and also makes it possible for programmers around the world to at least study it and ensure that no part of the program causes any harm to the users. In reality, business houses and other organisations are able to modify it to suit their needs.

Stallman soon left his job in MIT because of the fear that MIT may claim the copyright for his work. He was virtually a one-man industry when he started the GNU project in 1984, but was later joined by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. In 1985, He started the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to promote Free Software. Today, apart from the FSF in Boston, USA, (see www.fsf.org) there are FSFs in Europe (www.fsfeurope.org), India (www.fsf.org.in) and Latin America (www.fsfla.org). And Free Software has become powerful enough, and popular enough, to challenge the might of many proprietary software companies. For instance, all schools in Kerala use only Free Software, and the government of Kerala is in the process of migrating all its computers to Free Software. Schools in the Extramadura province in Spain do the same. But much before that, the city of Munich had decided to migrate all its computers to Free Software. Many companies and government bodies have already migrated (such as ELCOT in Tamil Nadu) or are in the process (the Kerala State Electricity Board, for instance). Though the Government of Kerala has adopted an IT Policy that explicitly promotes Free Software, the Government of India is yet to take such a step. Let us hope that the Government of India too will soon declare freedom in software.

Freedom in Knowledge

Now, software is like knowledge, as Stallman found. The similarity can be established in a very detailed manner. Instead of listing all the arguments, it may be pointed out that a lot of knowledge is available in digital format today, and, for a computer, there is little difference between a program and digitised knowledge such as a text file, image file or video file. In this situation, it should be possible to make knowledge also Free, just as the GNU project made software Free.

In March 2000, Jimmy Wales, an American Internet entrepreneur, started Nupedia, a free content online encyclopedia, the forerunner of today’s Wikipedia. The content of the encyclopedia was licenced under the Nupedia Open Content Licence that permitted anyone to copy, modify and distribute it, but prohibited anyone from charging for the content. The content was written by volunteers whose capability in the area was assessed by a committee and the content they submitted was peer reviewed before publishing. The cost of running Nupedia was underwritten by Bomis, an Internet company owned by Wales.

However, Nupedia had a short life. (It was wound up in 2003 after Wikipedia became a success.) Many contributors were unhappy with the extent of editorial control over contributions, and Richard Stallman and the FSF were in favour of giving much greater freedom to contributors. As a consequence, FSF started a new Free encyclopedia called GNUPedia in 2001. But since Jimmy Wales already owned the domain name gnupedia.org, this was renamed GNE (for GNE is Not an Encyclopedia) along the lines of GNU. GNE had a still shorter life partly because it was going through a struggle to decide on the extent of editorial control, but mainly because Nupedia started Wikipedia in 2001, which offered total freedom and licenced its content under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Apparently, it was Stallman who first put forward the suggestion for a Free online encyclopedia in 1999. Though he started GNE, after its failure he has been supporting Wikipedia.

Wikipedia today is the most popular encyclopedia with more than two million articles in English alone and has pages in many other languages. Eight of these languages have more than 3,00,000 articles and eight other languages have more than 1,00,000 articles. 254 languages of the world have at least one Wikipedia page. Indian languages are not well represented in Wikipedia. Telugu tops with 38,000 articles, followed by Bishnupriya Manipuri at 23,000, Bengali (17,000), Hindi (16,500), Marathi (16,200) and Tamil (13,000). All other languages have less than 10,000 articles. It is understood that the Malayalam encyclopedia being published by the Government of Kerala is planning to put all their articles in Wikipedia. Though, admittedly, the number of Internet users is a tiny fraction of the country’s population, this is bound to grow and the availability of information in Indian languages would certainly be a great help to all Indians, in India and abroad.

Wikipedia is today run by a non-profit organisation called Wikimedia Foundation with the help of contributions from the public. It has several other projects today, such as Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wiktionary, and so on. All the material, including text and figures, in all these sites can be freely copied, modified and used for any purpose without violating the copyright rules. This really is Freedom in knowledge.

Another related project is Wikimapia (http://wikimapia.org/). To quote Wikipedia, “WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information (in the form of a note) to any location on earth. It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of ‘describing the whole planet Earth’. It is one of the top 1000 websites visited, and has over 6 million places marked. While registration is not required to edit Wikimapia, over 153,000 users from around the world are currently registered.”

Freedom in Creativity

The word “knowledge” is used here to denote a wide spectrum of material including articles, books, stories, pictures, music, movies and so on. It has to be remembered that each of these has certain features that are not present in the others. Thus, for example, an article on Indian astronomy would largely contain material culled from various sources, though the actual form of presentation may be the author’s own. But a story would be the creative work that has emerged totally from the author’s imagination.

Thus, for human beings, knowledge has a fundamental difference with software. This is because, unlike software, it may not be advisable for some forms of knowledge to be allowed to be modified by anyone. Thus, for example, an interview with a personality has to retain its form and content since it is a report of an actual conversation. It may become dangerous to allow anyone to modify it. On the other hand, freedom could be given, for instance, to publish it elsewhere without any modification. Again, an artist may not wish anyone else to modify his painting, though it may not cause any problems. Thus, it is not sufficient to have a single licence for all forms of knowledge as we can do with in the case of software. Then what is the solution?

The solution was first offered by Creative Commons (CC) in December 2002. Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org) was launched by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at Stanford Law School, and friends precisely to address this problem. “Creative Commons took its idea ‘give away free copyright licenses’ from the Free Software Movement. But the problem we aimed to solve was somewhat different.” says Lawrence Lessig. And how was it different? “We didn’t begin with a world without proprietary culture. Instead, there has always been proprietary culture meaning work protected by an exclusive right. ... But for most of our history, the burdens imposed by copyright on other creators, and upon the culture generally, were slight. And there was a great deal of creative work that could happen free of the regulation of the law. ... All that began to change with the birth of digital technologies, and for a reason that no one ever fully thought through.”(see http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5668).

There was another reason that prompted the formulation of these licences. After the Berne convention in 1886, it became unnecessary to register for copyright. Any original material is automatically copyrighted. This was not so earlier. Eventually it became unnecessary even to mark a document as copyrighted. Unless otherwise declared, every document not in the public domain is copyrighted. Thus, it becomes difficult even to know whether a work is protected under Copyright law or not. This puts considerable difficulties in reusing material that is already available. And authors who may be willing to allow others some freedoms had no means of doing so. It was either Copyright or Public Domain (which allows all rights to everyone).

Creative Commons offers several licences through which the creator can offer certain freedoms to the people—or, as CC puts it, Some Rights Reserved as opposed to All Rights Reserved under Copyright. CC has four core licences, namely, Attribution (denoted as by), Noncommercial (nc), No Derivative Works (nd) and Share Alike (sa). These licences can be combined to produce new licences such as by-sa, by-nc-nd and so on (see http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses for more details) that are more useful than the core licences. CC has also developed a Sampling licence that permits others to use portions of the work in their own work. Remember a young author of Indian origin being penalised some time back for using parts of other books in her novel, even though people liked her novel?

An interesting consequence of CC was demonstrated through the creation of a piece of music through collaboration between different people who never knew each other. Colin Mutchler, an advocate for using media and technology to inspire people and cultures to take action toward a sustainable economy, submitted “My Life,” an acoustic guitar song, to Opsound, a music registry that requires Attribution-Share Alike licensing; Cora Beth, a total stranger to Colin, then layered a violin onto the song to create “My Life Changed.” No copyright lawyers were consulted—or harmed—in the process. Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Minister of Culture and a Grammy-award winning musician, has been supporting freedom in culture and has released some of his music under the CC Sampling licence.

A natural question is whether the creator will not lose revenue by allowing people to freely use his/her creations. The experience has been that (s)he does not. For instance, music groups have said that free music downloads, in fact, help them get more concerts. And their main income is from concerts (see http://www.news.com/2010-1071-944488.html, for instance. A Google search will find several such reports). And there are ways in which they can earn money, too. As Stallman and others have suggested, there can be a link on the download page that makes it possible for a user to make a payment voluntarily. For a reasonably good work, this could fetch the author a good sum. In any case, illegal copies of most movies and music are freely available in almost all parts of the globe, especially in developing countries, and nothing has happened to either the music industry or the movie industry. However, in the long run, the publishing industry, the recording industry and the film industry may have to move to a new paradigm that may be defined by the new technologies that are bound to emerge, though these industries have always shown a strong tendency to cling on to old paradigms and try their best not to change. (Remember how the music industry protested when the tape recorder was invented.) Till then, however, no drastic changes can be foreseen.

The music industry in the US succeeded in bringing legislation to support them through the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology and an associated law and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Stallman and Free Software enthusiasts call DRM Digital Restrictions Management. The technology actually prevents people from copying material recorded using the technology, or even play the recording on another player. Therefore, the word Restrictions seems to be more appropriate. Music enthusiasts have been protesting against this and one can find a lot of material on the web on this. They say that DRM even prevents their fair use right to make a back-up copy. Opponents have created software that can overcome DRM technology. But the DMCA makes it illegal to create or use such technology to break DRM. Fortunately, these laws are now present only in a few countries. India is under pressure from Indian and foreign recording industry to implement these laws. But let us hope that India would choose to give the benefits of technology to society than to the industry.

Freedom in Scientific Publishing

Publication of journals in science was started with the intention of communicating the results of research to other scientists. The first scientific journal in the modern sense was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London which started publication in 1665. In those days, the only means of such communication was through print. Most of the first journals were published by societies of researchers such as the Royal Society. As the number of journals increased, and the number of researchers also increased, publication companies found this a good business. A number of large publishing houses entered the business and, interestingly, the price of journals too started increasing. Eventually, the scientific community started revolting against journals that charged heavily. In 2001, two organisations jointly published what was called Declaring Independence (see http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI/).

Scientific or scholarly publishing is in many ways different from other forms of publishing. Here, articles are written by researchers and peer-reviewed by researchers. The editors of journals are also often researchers. The publishing house only prints and sends the journals to subscribers. The researchers are mostly paid by the public. Their research work is also supported by the public. Yet, the copyright of the articles is owned by the publishing house. Researchers and the public need to subscribe to the journals (ie. pay the publishers) for access to the information that was generated through public funds. And the journals were increasingly becoming more and more expensive that even some of the well-to-do universities in developed countries found it increasingly expensive to subscribe to all the relevant journals. These were the circumstances in which the scientists began to revolt.

The movement seems to have started in 2001 with a petition initiative by Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen, though there were sporadic protests from scientists even earlier. Thus, Prof. Donald Knuth, author of the classic Art of Computer Programming and the inventor of TeX, a language for typesetting technical documents, writes, “I love my library and the other libraries I visit frequently, and my blood boils when I see a library being overcharged. Therefore, I wrote a strong letter to Elsevier in August 2001 ... expressing serious concerns about their future pricing policy for the Journal of Algorithms. Elsevier, however, ignored my letter and did not reply.” (see http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/joalet.pdf). The Brown-Eisen petition called for all scientists to pledge that from September of 2001 they would discontinue submission of papers to journals which did not make the full-text of their papers available to all, free and unfettered, either immediately or after a delay of several months. The establishment of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was the next important event in the move towards freedom in scholarly publishing. Though they had support from an eminent Nobel Laureate, Dr. Harold Varmus, they had to wait for some time before they could become fully operational, with the publication of the journal PLoS Biology in 2003. Today they publish 7 journals, the contents of which are freely available on the Internet. They follow an author-pays model where authors of articles have to pay for publishing. They, and similar other journals, have provision to waive payment for authors from developing countries or authors who do not have provision for payment.

In Europe, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was, at the same time, a statement of intent, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment, was signed by several scientists at a meeting convened by the Open Society Institute during December 1-2, 2001. Today, the Initiative has been signed by thousands of scientists. This initiative has made a significant impact the world over, especially in Europe. Several research and funding agencies, such as CERN and NIH, have mandated open access for all publications arising out of research funded by them.

Open Access means that the publications are available freely to other scientists and to the public. In fact, it asks for all freedoms for users and demands only that the author be acknowledged and the integrity of the material be maintained. Of course, it does not permit republication of the material in the original form or in modified form, as CC licences do! Open Access to scholarly publications is very important in a country like India, obviously. The Government of India, therefore, should mandate Open Access (OA) for all publications arising out of publicly funded research. This can be in either of two ways: (i) the author can put up the article in his/her own website, in his/her institute’s website or at a centralised website (journals that permit this are called OA Green); or, they can publish in Open Access journals that put up their contents on their own websites (called OA Gold). Fortunately, a large fraction of Indian journals are OA. But most good papers from India are published in journals abroad that are not necessarily OA.

Freedom in Commerce

This is about a new experiment being conducted in India. The idea is to bring total transparency to businesses. An IT company has started functioning in Pune, called WikiOcean. Details about the company can be found at www.wikiocean.net. This company is unique in that the company website shows all details of its functioning, including financial transactions. They call this kind of system a Wekosystem, a play with wiki and ecosystem. As its website explains, “WikiOcean is a participatory, non-proprietary organization where professionals join on revenue-sharing model as explained in the wekosystem.” This company was inspired by the transparency of Free Software, and, in fact, one of the so-called catalysts (the ones who regulate the structure and dynamics of wekosystem) is the Chairman of the Free Software Foundation of India, Prof. G. Nagarjuna. The company has started functioning, and is already working on projects. But it is too early to see how well such a company can survive. Let us hope for the best.

Another absurdly exotic idea is to copy the Free Software model for other products. In other words, make all needs freely available to everyone! Though this may sound totally absurd, we may not be able to simply rule out the possibility since some small scale efforts are already on and seemingly running. This idea is being discussed by a not so small group of people that calls itself Oekonux (derived from oekonomie, the German word for economy, and Linux). Details can be found at www.oekonux.org and you could join their active mailing list if you are really interested.

Conclusion

As we have seen, new technologies bring new challenges and new ideas. And we may have to rewrite old laws that were created for an entirely different situation, a different technological paradigm. When new technology appears, we need to change our laws to suit the new situation so that the entire society can fully benefit from the new technology. Else a small section of society could garner all the benefits. And, at the pace at which technology is changing, it is not going to be easy to keep track of all its implications. Our technocrats and policy makers need to keep pace.

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