Re: IANG license translation draft

On 10/8/07, Patrick Godeau <pogo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

Michel Bauwens a écrit :
>
> I updated the discussion pages with this, and published Patrick's last 3
> paragraphis in our blog as well.

Thank you for spreading the good news ;-)

>
> Patrick:
>
> Would it possible to explain in more detail what you mean by ecopyleft,
> as it would be important to have an entry in our wiki on that.

By ecopyleft, I mean the extension of copyleft to the economy of a free
work.
While copyleft freedoms (to analyze, to modify, to distribute) apply to
an intellectual work, we can define similar freedoms applying to the
economic entity that commercializes the work:
- The freedom to access all accounting informations, so you can study
how the money is spent.
- The freedom to participate in all economic decisions, so you can
choose how the money is spent.
- The freedom to resell the work in another economic entity.
Ecopyleft guarantees that all who acquire the reselled work have the
same freedoms, and that no middleman captures these freedoms for his own
exclusive profit.

> What are seikatsu cooperatives.

The Seikatsu Club is a Japanese union of food cooperatives, which
defends social ethics and environmentalist principles, such as food
security, sustainable use of resources, refusal of GMOs, etc. To achieve
these goals, the consumers take responsabilities in the production
process, and the Seikatsu Club tries when possible to have its own
manufacturing units, jointly with the producers. So, the Seikatsu Club
is both a consumers' cooperative and a producers' cooperative.

>
> If you care to re-explain, for my benefit and that of our readers, how
> you see the exact relation between contributors and users. I have always
> thought that ownut's scheme, where everything is completely owned by
> users, is unaceptable, and that we need schemes that give associated
> power to both users and producers. I think you think in the same way.

What I think is based on the principle that those who contribute are
those who decide. Contributors are of two kinds, creative contributors
and economic contributors. Incidentally, both users and producers can
belong to both kinds of contributors, so this isn't a relevant qualifier.
- Creative contributors bring modifications to the intellectual work,
and therefore decide development orientations, combination of different
creative contributions into the work, etc.
- Economic contributors bring either money or workforce to the economic
project, and therefore take economic decisions about investment
priorities, distribution of profits, etc. These contributors include
workers, investors, and customers, the latter being presumably the most
numerous, thus driving the project towards the greatest social utility.
But while being a majority, consumers must share control with workers.
Each project is of course democratically managed (1 person = 1 vote). In
principle, the creative project and economic project are independent in
respect to each other, so for example creative contributors can't be
subjected to an authority relationship based on wage.

>
> Finally, I would like to take issue with the following:
>
> "My view is that exchange value should not be captured at all, by no one,
> not even by work contributors. One could call this "ecopyleft", which is
> to economy what copyleft is to information, a guarantee against
> privatization. This is why I wrote about "gift" economy, because
> everyone can give to the commons, but no one can take from. I didn't
> intend to refer to Mauss or potlatch, it would be more like an ordinary
> association, where associates contribute what they will, without a
> necessary reciprocation."
>
> I think you would benefit from reading Fiske, summarized here at
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Relational_Model_Typology_-_Fiske
>
> Of course, peer production based on voluntary engagement and universal
> access to its products, is about gifting, but it is a form of giving
> without reciprocity. Mauss gift economy on the other hand, is about
> elaborate schemes for reciprocity and symmetry, giving that creates an
> obligation of return, but unlike exchange, it is deferred in time and
> not quantified.

I agree. Did I wrote the contrary?

>
> This becomes:
>
> Equality matching, the gift economy that dominated tribal economies

(I'm not an expert, but I think that in some tribal economies, the one
who receives a gift is obliged to make a better gift, so in some cases
this is not strictly "equality matching".)

>
> Market Pricing, where there is immediate 'equal quantified exchange'
>
> Communal Shareholding, the peer to peer dynamic of non-reciprocal
> generalized exchange in common project that are available to all
>
> (the last one is Authority Ranking, the basis of the tributary and
> slaveholding economies)
>

Bye,

--
Patrick