User:Sanglorian/Sandbox
(Now available at My sandbox page
(The intention is that this will be a single page, 'Libre', into which the pages 'Libre knowledge', 'Libre Manifesto' and 'Libre Society' will have been merged)
The word libre /ˈliːbrə/ was borrowed from a number of Romance languages to describe works that are free from certain intellectual property restrictions. Typically, the works can be used, studied, modified and redistributed either without restriction or with restrictions designed to protect the reputation of the original creator and protect the rights of future users to treat any derivative works as libre works as well. In the free as in beer analogy used in free software, libre describes works that are ‘free as in speech’ while gratis describes works that are ‘free as in beer’.
Although the term has not been strictly defined, it encompasses the public domain, free and open source software, free content and potentially open content. It has been put forward as a substitute to the terms ‘free’ and ‘open’ because, as a borrowed term, it is less prone to ambiguity.[1] As well as being divided by subject matter, libre works can be divided based on the level of permissions and restrictions their particular libre licence provides.
Libre works stands in contrast to proprietary works, which remain under the control of their copyright holders. Some licences with similar terms to libre licences (such as Creative Commons licences with NonCommercial or NoDerivatives conditions) remain proprietary licences, typically because they forbid commercial or derivative use of the work, or both.
Etymology[edit]
Libre comes from the Latin word lībere; it shares that root with liberty. It describes a work or thing having "the state of being free". The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes libre as obsolete,[2] but the word has come back into limited use.[3] Libre appears in few English dictionaries.
History[edit]
The use of libre to describe free and open content dates back at least to 2001, where an announcement described Fle3 as ‘libre software for (libre) knowledge building’.[4] However, the concepts and requirements of libre works were established well before the term entered popular use.
The first libre definition was the free software definition published by the Free Software Foundation in 1986. Although limited to software, its four freedoms effectively identified those freedoms required for all libre works and the free culture and libre knowledge movements have used very similar freedoms in their definitions of free content and libre knowledge.[5]
In 1994, Ram Samudrala published the Free Music Philosophy. Mirroring the free software movement, it called for artists to allow their songs and compositions to be distributed with fewer copyright restrictions.
In 1998, the term open source was suggested as a substitute to free software because it avoided the ambiguous double-meaning of ‘free’ in English and was not as value-laden as the term free software. In that year, David Wiley coined the term OpenContent to describe both a particular licence and the broader concept of non-software libre works. Ironically, the OpenContent License is not libre because it forbids making copies for profit.
Drawing on Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture (published in 2002), the free culture movement promoted the distribution of cultural works under similar terms to those free software is distributed under. One of the more active manifestations of this movement has been Students for Free Culture.
Libre content[edit]
Libre content describes non-software creative works, such as books, songs and movies. Open content has also been used to describe these works, but it has come to be used to describe works with any added permissions over the copyright status quo.
Free content avoids this ambiguity. The four freedoms that must be guaranteed by free content are only slightly adapted from the four freedoms Richard Stallman called for in software.
Free, libre and open source software[edit]
The concept of libre works arose with Richard Stallman’s description of free software in 1985 and was codified in the 1986 free software definition. Free and open source software remains some of the most well known and successful examples of libre works, and are widely used in the community.
Libre knowledge and resources[edit]
Libre knowledge describes a set of principles and methodologies common to those who want knowledge – and the works explaining and sharing knowledge – to be free and open to use. Knowledge is taken to include data, content and general information, but also draws terms and processes from the open source movement.
Users of libre knowledge are free to
(0) use the work for any purpose (1) study its mechanisms, to be able to modify and adapt it to their own needs (2) make and distribute copies, in whole or in part (3) enhance and/or extend the work and share the result.
Freedoms 1 and 3 require free file formats and free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation[6]
Libre resources describes the works containing or communicating libre knowledge, such as files in an open format containing text, an image, sound, multimedia, etc. or combinations of these, accessible with free software, and released under a libre licence.
Open data[edit]
Open data describes data which is freely available to everyone to use and republish without violating intellectual property law.
Open source hardware[edit]
Designs, inventions and physical technology available for public use and reuse are described as open source hardware. However, whereas most libre works grant freedom under copyright law, open source hardware more heavily depends on exceptions to patent law.
Open standards and open file formats[edit]
Forms of libre[edit]
Copyleft[edit]
Copyleft describes a requirement on some libre licences that copies and modifications of the original work must be available under the same or similar licence. In this way, copyleft licences guarantee that all modifications and extensions of a libre work will be free as well.[7] The GNU General Public License was the first popular copyleft licence and remains the most common copyleft licence. The ShareAlike term on some Creative Commons licences is a similar concept; the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence is a copyleft licence.
Copyleft licences are also described as reciprocal or (pejoratively) as viral licences. One reason given for their use is that they are capable of ‘growing the commons’, by encouraging future works to be libre to take advantage of existing libre content.[8]
Permissive or copyfree[edit]
Permissive libre, copyfree, copycenter or academic licences are those libre licences which do not require derivative works to be licensed under the same licence as the original work. They also typically do not have common copyleft requirements, like restrictions on formats that the work can be available in or whether Digital Rights Management may be used on the product. The Copyfree Standard Definition, used by the Copyfree Initiative to certify copyfree licenses, disallows licenses that come with such copyleft requirements from certification.
Public domain[edit]
Public domain works are the most free libre works, although their status typically comes from the expiration of copyright rather than a libre licence. However, there are declarations that purport to place a work in the public domain or, in the case of the Creative Commons Zero licence, give it the same freedoms as works in the public domain.
Libre licences[edit]
Because libre encompasses a number of different forms of copyright or patentable content, it is difficult to describe a single set of criteria that identifies all libre licences. However, they would at least include open source licences, free software licences, free culture licences, and copyfree licences. Of the still active Creative Commons licences, Creative Commons Attribution, Attribution-ShareAlike and Zero are libre licences.
The Libre Society drafted two libre ‘licences’, but celebrated their lack of legal power.[9] They are the Res Divini Juris Licence and the Res Communes Licence,[9] but neither is in common use.
The libre movement[edit]
Libre Society[edit]
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The Libre Society is a radical artistic and cultural movement that is committed to releasing libre art, music and literature. The Libre Society’s call to action is captured in its manifesto.
The Libre Society has been inspired by the copyleft movement, the 1960s Situationists and writers such as Antonio Negri, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, Carl Schmitt and Friedrich Nietzsche. Set up by artists and intellectuals, it rejects art as merely objects to be bought and sold and instead reaffirms art as liberating, transformatory and emancipatory.
Libre Manifesto[edit]
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The Libre Manifesto is a manifesto calling for art and culture to recognise and reject the movement towards commodification and capitalism written by the Libre Society.
Free and open movements[edit]
Related concepts[edit]
Open source governance[edit]
Open source journalism[edit]
Open access[edit]
Creative Commons[edit]
Two Creative Commons licences, Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike, are libre licences (they are marked as ‘approved for free cultural works’). The remaining four main licences are not libre.
See Also[edit]
External Links[edit]
- Berry, D. M & Moss, G. (2008). Libre Culture: Meditations on Free Culture. Canada: Pygmalion Books.
- Free Knowledge requires Free Software and Free File Formats
References[edit]
- ^ Say ‘Libre’
- ^ OED.com, OED definition of libre: "Obs. Of the will: Free".
- ^ The Onelook dictionary website finds about 5 monoglot English dictionaries including "libre"; about 30 include "gratis"
- ^ Fle3 announcement in November 2001
- ^ ‘Libre Communities’
- ^ Libre Communities
- ^ "What is Copyleft?". Retrieved 29 August 2010.
- ^ ‘Say “Libre”’ by Kim Tucker
- ^ a b The politics of the libre commons, Berry and Moss