[WSIS CS-Plenary] PCT and WGIG

[Taran Rampersad]

Beatriz Busaniche wrote:

>El dom, 16-01-2005 a las 02:00 -0500, Taran Rampersad escribió:
>
>  
>
>>'Gender equality' is actually an issue in and of itself which does have
>>fluctuating meanings in different cultures as well as in different
>>geopolitical arenas. 
>>    
>>
>
>This doesn't invalidate the point. Rather, it reinforces it: 'gender
>equality' has an easy ring to it, and is an issue many people might feel
>they understand, yet it is complex enough that people who haven't
>studied the field in depth can do serious damage with the best of
>intentions if they try to impose their views on the issue upon the
>label.
>  
>
For my part, I think that bringing gender equality into it, *especially*
in the WSIS context, is not only irrelevant but misleading. 'Gender
equality' is a completely separate issue - and comes with it's own
challenges. For example, someone from the UN 'Global South' who is
female has more voice than someone from the Global South who is male.
That's not equality. That's a method to try to deal with imbalance
which, inadvertently, creates imbalance. That's another conversation, of
course, and that's my point. It is *another* conversation.

Free Software has the capacity to empower people. So does gender
equality. However, Free Software isn't about human biological and human
psychological differences and dealing with those differences. With Free
Software, there are no differences, and bringing up gender equality in
the context of Free Software and the WSIS has the capacity to divide
where there would otherwise be no division. Are Free Software advocates
people to be equated to the Global South and female? Or are they Global
North and male? Does it really matter (No!). One could be a purple
hermaphrodite from Antarctica and still advocate Free Software. On a
sidenote, I wonder how the UN would classify that. :-)

Free Software is, at the core, a philosophy and a philosophy which has
been practiced in areas other than software by both patriarchal and
matriarchal societies. The concept of a commons is not a new one.

>>I disagree on one part of this. Free Software itself is not complex.
>>Free Software itself is quite simple. It's the present regime of
>>non-traditional software (proprietary) that is complex, and is growing
>>increasingly complex due to the nature of the legalities associated with
>>it. The standardization of these legalities through political and
>>corporate weight is really what is complex.
>>    
>>
>
>I guess it's my turn to disagree on one part. While it is true that it's
>the proprietary world and the increasingly complex legal framework
>behind it that is next to impossible to understand, this complexity has
>the unfortunate effect of spoiling free software's simplicity. The truth
>is, to understand and explain free software (which ought to be simple)
>you also have to understand and explain proprietary because, due to
>overexposure to WIPOspeak, people tend to have a huge blind spot in that
>area.
>
>I wish your appreciation that "free software is simple" were
>unqualifiedly true. If it were so, we wouldn't see so many people, even
>people who ought to be knowledgeable about it, misunderstand key
>concepts of free software. Unfortunately, evidence shows that it isn't
>as simple as that.
>  
>
Free Software itself is simple. The legal framework that presently
exists is not that of Free Software, though through some nice recursion
the present system is forced to support it. There is a difference.
Confusing these issues at an advocate level confuses people who are
being advocated to.

Explain the concepts of Free Software to someone who doesn't understand
the legal framework presently in existence, and you can do so without
bringing the legal framework into it. There are times in the context of
the WSIS that the legal framework must be addressed - yet people must
always remember that Free Software is trying to deal with the flaws in
the legal framework, and is not a part of a problem.

Free Software is *simple*. By trying to explain Free Software in the
context of a framework which does not fit Free Software, one makes it
complex.

Proprietary software is complex, complicated legal gates of who owns the
right to do what and for how long, on how many computers and with no
ability to support it. Proprietary software wants to patent what could
be perceived as trade secrets to add to this complication; they do not
need patents to protect their work if they are not sharing the source
code and by actually making the patent available they create a mess for
proprietary software development instead of assisting proprietary
software developers - for lack of eating, they become cannibalistic and
eat themselves. Proprietary software does not teach people how to solve
their own problems; it's basis is that a few select people in the world
know how to solve everyone else's problems (now THAT is communist!).

Free Software is NOT about any of those things. Free Software is about
making sense of a horrid mistake that has been compounded by case after
case... and it extends to other areas as well. There IS a bigger
picture, and confusing the issues associated only with software has some
rather interesting results: http://www.knowprose.com/node/1218 -- then
there's the Enola Bean, etc. The underlying concepts of Free Software
make sense at an intuitive and common sense level. That is what Free
Software should be appealing to.

Proprietary software advocates have constantly been the ones 'picking
the ground' upon which 'battles' are fought. Most of the progress that
has been had by Free Software has been not by fighting such battles, but
rather by simply making *sense*. The average farmer who never owned a
computer can understand what Free Software is. But that farmer - male or
female - will certainly be confused by the legal issues related to
proprietary software because it simply does not make *sense*. It's
irrational. It's non-intuitive.

Free Software is both rational and intuitive. More developers, less
lawyers.

Taran Rampersad

cnd at knowprose.com

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