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Attachment '20070903_freedom_en.srt'
Download1 00:00:00,914 --> 00:00:03,515 This is Alan Pope with the third screencast in the 2 00:00:03,615 --> 00:00:05,615 Ubuntu Month Of Screencasts. 3 00:00:05,715 --> 00:00:08,354 All the screencasts in this month can be downloaded for free 4 00:00:08,454 --> 00:00:12,657 from our website, which is screencasts.ubuntu.com 5 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:16,802 Today we are going to look at freedom and software licenses. 6 00:00:16,902 --> 00:00:21,405 This is a massive subject and I am not a great expert on software licenses, 7 00:00:21,642 --> 00:00:24,164 so you will have to bear with me on this. 8 00:00:24,479 --> 00:00:27,663 Freedom can be seen in different ways by different people. 9 00:00:28,088 --> 00:00:31,178 I will give you some examples of how people perceive freedom, 10 00:00:31,278 --> 00:00:34,157 when they are using computers and computer devices. 11 00:00:34,535 --> 00:00:37,735 Here is a diagram that was created a couple of years ago by a friend of mine 12 00:00:37,987 --> 00:00:39,961 and it represents my local network. 13 00:00:40,102 --> 00:00:42,700 Now I have changed my network in the last couple of years 14 00:00:42,837 --> 00:00:44,434 and I would like to update this diagram. 15 00:00:44,860 --> 00:00:48,785 But in order to do that, because the file format is not open 16 00:00:48,885 --> 00:00:49,967 it is a closed format. 17 00:00:50,067 --> 00:00:53,145 I would need to go and buy a copy of the program, Visio 18 00:00:53,305 --> 00:00:56,130 and buy a copy of the operating system it runs on, Windows, 19 00:00:56,230 --> 00:00:58,230 in order to make changes to this file, 20 00:00:58,330 --> 00:01:00,330 because the format is closed. 21 00:01:00,430 --> 00:01:01,977 That is what we call vendor lock-in. 22 00:01:02,108 --> 00:01:05,026 I am locked to using that vendor for that software. 23 00:01:05,126 --> 00:01:07,410 That is one element where my freedom is restricted. 24 00:01:07,561 --> 00:01:10,882 I can not make changes to my own files. 25 00:01:12,543 --> 00:01:14,636 Another example of lack of freedom 26 00:01:14,786 --> 00:01:17,731 is in the video driver for my 3-D card. 27 00:01:17,936 --> 00:01:21,176 I have an NVIDIA card and NVIDIA provide a 28 00:01:21,390 --> 00:01:24,408 binary only, no source code driver. 29 00:01:24,598 --> 00:01:28,571 Which means that when somthing goes wrong with that driver 30 00:01:28,671 --> 00:01:31,188 there is no way for the developers 31 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:34,453 of Ubuntu or any other developer that I know, 32 00:01:34,553 --> 00:01:39,080 to look at the code, because NVIDIA do not release it. 33 00:01:41,178 --> 00:01:44,871 That makes maintainence and support very difficult. 34 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:54,576 Another area where people perceive freedom as being restricted is 35 00:01:54,679 --> 00:01:57,042 in the ability to play media they have downloaded or bought, 36 00:01:57,212 --> 00:01:59,476 on the device of their choice. 37 00:01:59,644 --> 00:02:02,726 Not one that is imposed by the vendor. 38 00:02:03,983 --> 00:02:08,924 Another example is downloading media and paying for it 39 00:02:09,122 --> 00:02:12,657 and finding that the vendor has now shutdown the service 40 00:02:12,768 --> 00:02:13,602 or gone out of business. 41 00:02:13,713 --> 00:02:17,932 You are now no longer able to play the media that you paid for. 42 00:02:18,204 --> 00:02:21,106 That is obviously restricting your freedom to play 43 00:02:21,206 --> 00:02:24,265 what you thought you had bought. 44 00:02:25,204 --> 00:02:28,195 The way in which that is usually implemented 45 00:02:28,295 --> 00:02:31,103 is with technological software locks 46 00:02:31,213 --> 00:02:33,705 Which is often called DRM, Digital Rights Management 47 00:02:33,788 --> 00:02:35,726 or as the Free Software Foundation call it 48 00:02:35,782 --> 00:02:37,988 Digital Restrictions Management. 49 00:02:38,665 --> 00:02:41,579 This is software that prevents you being able to do stuff 50 00:02:41,664 --> 00:02:43,834 with the media that you download or buy. 51 00:02:44,897 --> 00:02:49,917 There are three examples, Googlevideo, the BBC iPlayer and iTunes. 52 00:02:51,214 --> 00:02:54,936 Another element of freedom is being able to make changes to 53 00:02:57,510 --> 00:03:02,257 media such as images, video, music and create derivative works. 54 00:03:02,377 --> 00:03:04,699 It may be that it is not allowed. 55 00:03:04,799 --> 00:03:06,452 In addition to which you might want to 56 00:03:06,589 --> 00:03:09,397 copy something, and make duplicate copies for your friends 57 00:03:09,500 --> 00:03:11,246 and that also may not be allowed. 58 00:03:11,417 --> 00:03:14,565 That is usually restricted not through DRM, 59 00:03:14,674 --> 00:03:18,208 but through a restricted End User Licence Agreement. 60 00:03:18,308 --> 00:03:19,638 or just just Licence, 61 00:03:19,738 --> 00:03:22,923 that prevents you being able to make copies 62 00:03:23,053 --> 00:03:24,396 It does not technically prevent you, 63 00:03:24,496 --> 00:03:26,279 but legally prevents you being able 64 00:03:26,379 --> 00:03:30,739 to make copies or derivative forms of media. 65 00:03:31,141 --> 00:03:33,849 Here is an example of a restrictive End User Licence Agreement. 66 00:03:34,018 --> 00:03:37,168 This is the Skype End User Licence Agreement 67 00:03:37,268 --> 00:03:39,944 You can see there section two point three, no modifications. 68 00:03:39,939 --> 00:03:42,887 You are not allowed to make changes to the skype program. 69 00:03:43,161 --> 00:03:46,037 So even if you wanted to improve it, you can not. 70 00:03:46,137 --> 00:03:49,222 Even if you wanted to integrate skype with some other product in some way 71 00:03:49,324 --> 00:03:52,714 you can not because you are not allowed to make changes to the program. 72 00:03:53,125 --> 00:03:56,036 Here is another restrictive End User Licence Agreement. 73 00:03:56,136 --> 00:03:59,905 Windows XP Home Edition licence 74 00:04:00,419 --> 00:04:02,724 You are not allowed to 75 00:04:02,824 --> 00:04:06,154 give that copy of XP on a computer to another person. 76 00:04:06,275 --> 00:04:08,020 and then them give it to somebody else. 77 00:04:08,170 --> 00:04:09,961 You can only do that once. 78 00:04:10,061 --> 00:04:12,336 So if someone gives me a computer running XP 79 00:04:12,436 --> 00:04:14,835 I can not then give that computer to somebody else, 80 00:04:14,935 --> 00:04:16,935 when I have finished with it. 81 00:04:17,986 --> 00:04:21,501 Compare that with permissive free software licenses, 82 00:04:21,752 --> 00:04:25,382 which we use a lot in Ubuntu. 83 00:04:25,519 --> 00:04:27,482 So what is a free software license? 84 00:04:27,582 --> 00:04:29,800 Well this is straight from Wikipedia, 85 00:04:29,936 --> 00:04:33,190 It grants you the rights to modify and redistribute the software, 86 00:04:33,566 --> 00:04:37,847 which might otherwise be restricted by copyright law. 87 00:04:38,326 --> 00:04:41,271 So this means you might be able to make changes, improve, 88 00:04:41,371 --> 00:04:43,371 fix and redistribute programs, 89 00:04:43,471 --> 00:04:46,133 where a restricted license might not let you. 90 00:04:46,921 --> 00:04:50,037 One of the most popular permissive free software licenses is 91 00:04:50,137 --> 00:04:53,667 the GNU General Public Licence, GPL. 92 00:04:53,767 --> 00:04:58,255 GNU was started over twenty years ago by Richard Stallman. 93 00:04:58,769 --> 00:05:01,102 We will look at some links later on, 94 00:05:01,193 --> 00:05:02,758 where you can find out more information about this. 95 00:05:02,878 --> 00:05:05,095 As I said, this is not my area of expertise, 96 00:05:05,195 --> 00:05:08,475 but I will give you an introduction and there is more information 97 00:05:08,686 --> 00:05:11,199 in plenty of of places on the web. 98 00:05:11,299 --> 00:05:17,072 The GNU GPL is what is used by the Linux kernel 99 00:05:17,172 --> 00:05:19,223 and many other free software projects as well, 100 00:05:19,323 --> 00:05:21,445 that make up the Ubuntu distribution. 101 00:05:21,545 --> 00:05:24,691 So Ubuntu has lots of software products 102 00:05:24,791 --> 00:05:26,791 packaged together in a distribution 103 00:05:26,891 --> 00:05:29,519 and they may all have different licenses. 104 00:05:29,862 --> 00:05:33,800 You can find a copy of those licenses on your Ubuntu machine 105 00:05:33,902 --> 00:05:36,251 in this directory, /usr/share/common-licenses. 106 00:05:36,431 --> 00:05:38,833 These are some of the more common licenses. 107 00:05:38,933 --> 00:05:40,614 Funnily enough, with the name of the directory. 108 00:05:40,717 --> 00:05:43,764 GPL, the BSD license and the LGPL. 109 00:05:44,072 --> 00:05:48,669 If you want to know the license a program or a package 110 00:05:48,769 --> 00:05:51,674 is licensed under, you can have a look in this directory. 111 00:05:51,774 --> 00:05:53,864 /usr/share/doc/and then change the little 112 00:05:53,975 --> 00:05:56,523 asterisk for the package name you want to check 113 00:05:56,623 --> 00:05:58,523 and there is a copyright file in there. 114 00:05:58,623 --> 00:06:00,923 For example here is the copyright file for the Linux kernel. 115 00:06:01,023 --> 00:06:03,504 Now you probably can not read this text, 116 00:06:03,604 --> 00:06:07,336 but if you go and open this file you will find 117 00:06:07,563 --> 00:06:10,611 that it says about half way down, 118 00:06:10,711 --> 00:06:13,830 This program is free software, you can redistribute it 119 00:06:13,930 --> 00:06:15,644 and/or modify it under the terms of the 120 00:06:15,747 --> 00:06:17,391 GNU General Public License, 121 00:06:17,491 --> 00:06:20,541 published by the Free Software Foundation, version two. 122 00:06:20,641 --> 00:06:28,641 So therefore the Linux kernel is licensed under the GPL version two. 123 00:06:31,741 --> 00:06:36,255 Another package is Tomboy, which is supplied with Ubuntu 124 00:06:36,355 --> 00:06:37,948 It is a great note taking application. 125 00:06:38,048 --> 00:06:40,048 If we look at the copyright file for that, 126 00:06:40,148 --> 00:06:43,484 it says Tomboy is licensed under the LGPL version two point one. 127 00:06:43,861 --> 00:06:46,908 So what we have here is multiple different packages, 128 00:06:47,010 --> 00:06:49,785 different applications within the distribution. 129 00:06:50,056 --> 00:06:52,685 Some of those applications use different licenses, 130 00:06:52,801 --> 00:06:54,921 but those licenses are permissive enough 131 00:06:55,332 --> 00:06:58,691 that the files can be put together within one distribution 132 00:06:58,825 --> 00:07:00,788 and sold as one entity. 133 00:07:02,283 --> 00:07:05,365 There is a lot more information about this online 134 00:07:05,947 --> 00:07:08,858 and I would highly recommend if you want to know more 135 00:07:08,958 --> 00:07:10,958 you can read those licenses. 136 00:07:11,118 --> 00:07:13,994 They are a bit dry to read on their own, but they are 137 00:07:14,094 --> 00:07:18,925 surprisingly not too legal, full of legalese that is. 138 00:07:19,062 --> 00:07:22,416 Here are a few links that might be useful. 139 00:07:22,516 --> 00:07:24,575 I will put these links on the website, if you go to 140 00:07:24,712 --> 00:07:27,520 screencasts.ubuntu.com and click on this 141 00:07:27,692 --> 00:07:30,465 you will find these links. 142 00:07:30,565 --> 00:07:33,926 The first one is on wikipedia, there is a page about free software. 143 00:07:34,026 --> 00:07:37,827 It describes what free software is and the ethos of 144 00:07:37,927 --> 00:07:41,663 being able to redistribute, modified or unmodified, 145 00:07:41,834 --> 00:07:43,923 without restriction or maybe with restriction, 146 00:07:44,060 --> 00:07:45,601 depending upon the license. 147 00:07:45,909 --> 00:07:48,717 There is also a page on Wikipedia about GNU, 148 00:07:48,817 --> 00:07:53,031 and the history of GNU and the projects that GNU have 149 00:07:53,168 --> 00:07:58,136 and the programs that GNU have under their license. 150 00:07:58,716 --> 00:08:01,777 Then if you go to the GNU homepage there is 151 00:08:01,877 --> 00:08:05,222 a tremendous amount of information about GNU 152 00:08:05,322 --> 00:08:07,927 and also a little bit here at the top about 153 00:08:08,027 --> 00:08:13,817 the naming of GNU and GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux. 154 00:08:13,885 --> 00:08:17,138 Here is a little section, I'll just make a bit bigger, 155 00:08:17,238 --> 00:08:22,001 and here is the four freedoms, that are enshrined in the GNU GPL. 156 00:08:22,101 --> 00:08:24,101 Freedom to run the program, 157 00:08:24,201 --> 00:08:25,391 freedom to study the program, 158 00:08:25,491 --> 00:08:27,491 freedom to redistribute the program and 159 00:08:27,591 --> 00:08:30,082 freedom to improve the program and then 160 00:08:30,182 --> 00:08:33,027 release your improvements. 161 00:08:34,465 --> 00:08:37,346 You will notice access to the source code is a pre-requisite 162 00:08:37,446 --> 00:08:40,458 for being able to study and modify the program. 163 00:08:42,311 --> 00:08:46,283 There is also a great set of pages about the philosophy 164 00:08:46,382 --> 00:08:48,539 of free software and these are worth a read. 165 00:08:48,847 --> 00:08:51,792 Also worth looking at is the Free Software Foundation. 166 00:08:51,998 --> 00:08:56,004 The Free Software Foundation's website is fsf.org 167 00:08:56,104 --> 00:09:00,010 and they promote freedom in computing. 168 00:09:00,627 --> 00:09:03,811 There is also a couple of great pages on Wikipedia about the list of 169 00:09:03,983 --> 00:09:05,524 approved software licenses. 170 00:09:05,626 --> 00:09:11,550 So the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative 171 00:09:11,893 --> 00:09:16,584 ratify whether licenses are "free" or "open". 172 00:09:16,684 --> 00:09:20,693 Here is an example where something is free, 173 00:09:20,793 --> 00:09:23,844 but the PHP license is incompatible with the GPL, 174 00:09:23,944 --> 00:09:26,275 because there are terms in each that conflict with each other. 175 00:09:26,375 --> 00:09:29,220 So it is difficult, you could not create a program that is 176 00:09:29,391 --> 00:09:31,308 part based on a GPL program and 177 00:09:31,408 --> 00:09:33,945 part based on a PHP licensed program, 178 00:09:34,045 --> 00:09:36,045 because the licenses are incompatible. 179 00:09:36,145 --> 00:09:40,554 There is a bit about incompatibilty of licenses within those pages. 180 00:09:41,170 --> 00:09:43,599 So it is worth having a read of some of those pages, 181 00:09:43,699 --> 00:09:45,565 when you have a bit of time. 182 00:09:45,896 --> 00:09:47,665 Many thanks for watching. 183 00:09:47,765 --> 00:09:50,553 All of the screencasts are available on our website, 184 00:09:50,653 --> 00:09:54,046 screencasts.ubuntu.com
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