Commercial activity, exchange and capitalism, was: Re: [matilda] gigspace collective related-proposal

[Chris]

Hi

On Tue 11-Oct-2005 at 11:28:11AM +0100, Helen and Nick
wrote:
> 
> All the same arguments apply to selling artwork made at
> matilda. But again why not trust people and lets see
> what happens rather than closing down this opportunity
> for artists before they start. I am not overly stressed
> by people getting a few quid in their pocket to pay
> bills, avoid work, have a good night out when there is
> so much more to be angry about. It's a grey area, but
> lets at least burn brightly in a hive or creative
> activity that may be imperfect before we burn out with
> nothing achieved but a management quagmire.

I totally agree with Helen.

But you might want to stop reading this email at this
point... ;-)

I think everything should be free (free as in gratis and
free as in freedom) and available in abundance, however
capitalism isn't going to go away tomorrow... (which is a
shame).

In principal I'm not opposed to things like, the Cafe
charging for cups of coffee, gigs that you pay to get
into, art work for sale, books for sale, a t-shirt
collective printing t-shirts and charging for them etc...

These things are not really capitalism (where is the
capital?) but I do think they are commercial activity.

I guess the following example won't make much sense to
many people but these are examples that I know best...

With Free software is is OK to charge (as much as
possible) for it:

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

And in addition I don't really have a problem with large
amounts of Capital being invested in Free software (it
absorbs it with few problematic side effects) because it
doesn't effect the freedom of others.

I don't like the Non-Commercial use clause that the
Creative Commons licenses have as an option:

  Noncommercial. You let others copy,
  distribute, display, and perform your work — and
  derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial
  purposes only

  Examples: Gus publishes his photograph on his website
  with a Noncommercial license. Camille prints Gus'
  photograph. Camille is not allowed to sell the print
  photograph without Gus's permission.

  http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

Because, for example it could prevent all the above
mentioned activities that could happen at Matilda that
would involve commercial exchange.

The SSF wiki we have been using has all content under the
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license:

  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Applying terms like this to electronic things is
relatively easy, making actual physical stuff Free (free
as in freedom initally, free as in free beer also if
possible...) is a bit more complicated... but I think this
is essentially what is needed here...

Chris

PS More on this stuff here:

   - Philosophy of the GNU Project
     http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
      
   - Free Software & GPL Society
     http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/mertentext.html
   
   - Free Software and Market Relations
     http://www.oekonux.org/texts/marketrelations.html
      
-- 
Aktivix -- Free Software for a Free World