The idea behind GPL is free software. The idea that good software should be available for everyone. The blessing of the digital age that you could copy things without a price. That everyone shoud benefit from it. I won’t go further into what free means here. But just giving software away doesn’t achieve this. Other people/comps will just use it and protect it with whatever means they have. The old principle of the competition of the strongest (marketeer).
To counter the existing legal means of exploiting ‘unprotected’ software the GPL does two things that are entwined: It
uses an existing valid legal construct—the licensing model—to ensure that the software may not be exploited and stays free. And the second point—GPLs viral nature—causes it to grow and spread.
Actually there are more embedding means applied by the FSF. Companies may sign over software to the FSF (or other cheritable trust) for a nominal price that is the donation and the company can therefore tax-deduct it. A win-win situation for both but an additional means to add free software to the pool making it grow more.
One question I have seldom seen answered by social utopia models is how to get to the utopia from here and now. And the solution I see for this is a growing embedding of the utopia in the current society.
I have seldom seen this applied (except as above) but I immediately recognized it in your post.
Assuming your utopia—or rather the fragment of utopia related to a better currency—is an efficient digital currency feeding back efficient common wellfare. Then you have essentially shown how to embed this in a growing way:
Use a legal construct—a cheritable trust—to ensure a legally bound entity is handing out the ‘currency’
Use another legal construct—an alternate currency—to ensure legal convertability.
Use social expectations and customs—donation and the trustee community—to propagate the construct.
You didn’t name precise rules for the statutes of the trust, but I’m sure these could be drafted by a dedicated lawyer easily.
I think there is much to be learned from this with respect to hacking society—esp. with advanced technology.
We see tentative tries with direct democracy and free-nets to bring in the boon of technology for all. But many fail in doing it in an embedding way thus causing friction and counterforce instead of synergy.
Thanks for your explanation of GPL and for your very illuminative post. The embedding idea is very good. It contrasts against the ordinary model which is overthrow of the existing model by political means.
The question of the statutes of the trust is also interesting—I didn’t think of that. I suppose that could be a means of ensuring users they won’t get ripped off.
The whole feel of the program would be quite different from Bitcoin. It should not be a shady underground currency but rather work very much in line with the current political system, collaborating, and making use of, its legal system. Together with its altruistic purposes, this will make it harder for politicians to outlaw it.
The last paragraph was suggestive but I didn’t quite get it; if you could expand on that that would be great.
The last paragraph was suggestive but I didn’t quite get it; if you could expand on that that would be great.
Basically, you already got it: Just using technology and having a good purpose in mind doesn’t ensure that your goal is achieved.
Bitcoin is an example: It uses technology and has the idea of a ‘free’ currency, but it fails (or at least risks failure) by not embedding it suitably into society. This makes it prone to counterforce e.g., marketing/forbidding/taxing/externally regulating it—because that is not anticipated and handled. Or if it is expected, the confrontation is chosen. And it causes friction because everybody has to apply their own reasoning how to use it—and each one likely in a different way working in opposite directions. For bitcoin, this shows in the zero-sum race for hardware.
The idea behind GPL is free software. The idea that good software should be available for everyone. The blessing of the digital age that you could copy things without a price. That everyone shoud benefit from it. I won’t go further into what free means here. But just giving software away doesn’t achieve this. Other people/comps will just use it and protect it with whatever means they have. The old principle of the competition of the strongest (marketeer).
To counter the existing legal means of exploiting ‘unprotected’ software the GPL does two things that are entwined: It uses an existing valid legal construct—the licensing model—to ensure that the software may not be exploited and stays free. And the second point—GPLs viral nature—causes it to grow and spread.
Actually there are more embedding means applied by the FSF. Companies may sign over software to the FSF (or other cheritable trust) for a nominal price that is the donation and the company can therefore tax-deduct it. A win-win situation for both but an additional means to add free software to the pool making it grow more.
One question I have seldom seen answered by social utopia models is how to get to the utopia from here and now. And the solution I see for this is a growing embedding of the utopia in the current society.
I have seldom seen this applied (except as above) but I immediately recognized it in your post.
Assuming your utopia—or rather the fragment of utopia related to a better currency—is an efficient digital currency feeding back efficient common wellfare. Then you have essentially shown how to embed this in a growing way:
Use a legal construct—a cheritable trust—to ensure a legally bound entity is handing out the ‘currency’
Use another legal construct—an alternate currency—to ensure legal convertability.
Use social expectations and customs—donation and the trustee community—to propagate the construct.
You didn’t name precise rules for the statutes of the trust, but I’m sure these could be drafted by a dedicated lawyer easily.
I think there is much to be learned from this with respect to hacking society—esp. with advanced technology.
We see tentative tries with direct democracy and free-nets to bring in the boon of technology for all. But many fail in doing it in an embedding way thus causing friction and counterforce instead of synergy.
EDIT. Fixed typos,
Thanks for your explanation of GPL and for your very illuminative post. The embedding idea is very good. It contrasts against the ordinary model which is overthrow of the existing model by political means.
The question of the statutes of the trust is also interesting—I didn’t think of that. I suppose that could be a means of ensuring users they won’t get ripped off.
The whole feel of the program would be quite different from Bitcoin. It should not be a shady underground currency but rather work very much in line with the current political system, collaborating, and making use of, its legal system. Together with its altruistic purposes, this will make it harder for politicians to outlaw it.
The last paragraph was suggestive but I didn’t quite get it; if you could expand on that that would be great.
Basically, you already got it: Just using technology and having a good purpose in mind doesn’t ensure that your goal is achieved.
Bitcoin is an example: It uses technology and has the idea of a ‘free’ currency, but it fails (or at least risks failure) by not embedding it suitably into society. This makes it prone to counterforce e.g., marketing/forbidding/taxing/externally regulating it—because that is not anticipated and handled. Or if it is expected, the confrontation is chosen. And it causes friction because everybody has to apply their own reasoning how to use it—and each one likely in a different way working in opposite directions. For bitcoin, this shows in the zero-sum race for hardware.