What happens to source-available without copyright?

[Wuzzy]

Assuming you live in Anarcholand, in which no copyright law exists, would all source-avaliable software also automatically be free software (at least in Anarcholand)?

[CYBERDEViL]

Is the anarchist from Anarcholand allowed to run, study, modify and distribute the code?

[Wuzzy]

Yes, there is no law prohibiting it.

I should clarify:

- The software has public source code, but no license attached. In other words, source-available
- Anarcholand has no copyright law, and no law that prohibits any of the 4 Freedoms in any other way (like, for example the infamous DMCA from the U.S.A.)

If you live in Copyrightland (where we live now), the software is clearly non-free.
But what happens if you live in Anarcholand?

[Julius]

You are basically saying that if there was no copyright, then copyright wouldn't exists

[CYBERDEViL]

But what happens if you live in Anarcholand?

Probably some a**holes will try to "liberate" Anarcholand.

[drummyfish]

The answer is a license wouldn't be required for a SW to be free, but source availability wouldn't automatically make it a free SW. Always ask whether the 4 freedoms are guaranteed IN PRACTICE.

The 4 freedoms aren't only the question of law, you can have a SW with a free license that isn't free in practice (e.g. because it's purposefully overcomplicated so that in practice hardly anyone can study it, modify it or even compile it).

Now if there is no intellectual property law that by default disables some of the essential rights, you don't need a license in order for the SW to be free. However if the freedoms are prevented by other ways such as there being a fascist group that by the right of the stronger kills you if you try to modify their software, the software is not free. It doesn't matter what exactly it is that denies you your right.

So firstly ask WHY do we even define free software? We do it so that people can together create good and ethical tools; that's why we define the 4 freedoms. These freedoms have to ultimately be guaranteed practically. Nowadays the biggest obstacle is law which is why we are concerned with licenses, but in a different society law may be completely irrelevant and there may be other obstacles to SW freedom. Always stay focused on the end goal, as definitions and calssifications are here only to server this goal.

[Jastiv]

The answer is a license wouldn't be required for a SW to be free, but source availability wouldn't automatically make it a free SW. Always ask whether the 4 freedoms are guaranteed IN PRACTICE.

The 4 freedoms aren't only the question of law, you can have a SW with a free license that isn't free in practice (e.g. because it's purposefully overcomplicated so that in practice hardly anyone can study it, modify it or even compile it).

I've defiantly seen some of that. It is like people work hard to make the whole thing "harder" to work with and modify. That is why I really like the philosophy of suckless games, not that I always make things suckless, but it is definitely something to strive for, rather than making things like "dependency hunt" or "you have to do a bunch of complicated obscure stuff to modify the game" None the less, a lot of proprietary games get mods in spite of the horrid system that can include things like hex-editing, reverse engineering, rewriting the entire codebase, stuffing assets into obscure formats etc etc, not that free software doesn't have its horrors too. Part of it is definitely a "business model" thing, "only I can understand it, or very few people can so modders are harder to find." but also because of "look at me, I learned a bunch of new stuff such as learning this trending library no one knows how to use, its already outdated, but your distro is using an even older version, too bad you can't make it work, that isn't the point, the point is that I demonstrate my skill as a developer for employers, not actually make and ship a game.

[Wuzzy]

I have thought about your comment, DrummyFish, and I just had a thought.
I actually start to think the idea of a software being 'free' or 'non-free' is actually stupid.
Wait, hear me out, I am 100% behind free software and I want it to succeed everywhere. It's more about terminology.

It's kind of weird wording when you think about it. Because the software couldln't care less about whether it is 'free' or not. It's just a software, it cannot think.

What free software is actually about is not about the software's freedom, but about whether the people are free in relationship to using that software.
It seems like a software in a vacuum cannot be either 'free' or 'non-free' because there is no one.

So the term 'free software' is very strange in the sense that it suggests that freedom is some innate property of the software itself, while in reality it is nothing like that.

Heck, I even now claim that it would be possible for the same software to be both free and non-free at the same time:

Imagine there are 2 countries: Anarchyland and Copyrightland. In anarchyland there is no copyright while in copyrightland there is. Only in copyright land is copyright enforced while in anarchyland you can copy and share whatever without consequences.
Now let's say someone writes a software that is source-available in a way that is very transparent. For practical purposes, let's say everything what is needed to qualify the software as libre/free in a practical sense is already set in place for this software, EXCEPT the license/permissions. This, of course, means it's not free. So copying, sharing, modifying this software in Copyrightland is illegal, making this software non-free.
Good point by DrummyFish in pointing out the problem of practicality. Yeah, I would agree if you can't actually make use of the 4 freedoms, you don't actually have them.

But now comes the paradox: What happens if you live in Anarchyland and obtain the same software there? There is no power that prevents you from executing your 4 freedoms. The fact that there is no software license doesn't matter, since there's nobody to punish you, there's no copyright law that applies.

Therefore, the same software can be both free and non-free. For people in Anarchyland, the software is free, but for people in Copyrightland, it is not.

That's very interesting, don't you think? Free software, in that sense, is actually not a claim about the software itself at all. It is actually a relationship between the software and the users. This is a very strange terminology indeed.

I start to think it might be a good idea to reconsider the wording surrounding software. While I very much prefer this terminology much over "open-source" (which just feels so dull), I think "free software" isn't that great either ... The wording around free software is all about the software itselves, but this distracts from the fact that it is actually a relationship between you, the user, and the powers that be.

I don't want to completely dismiss the importance of the software itself tho. If the software is so opaque or full of spaghetti code or just plain weird and nobody understands it, it's still a stretch to call it 'free' even if the licensing is right. So yeah, I agree with you that even in Anarchyland not all software could be free if you take practicality into account.

However, I feel like the relationship between you and the state and the copyright holder (if there is a copyright system to begin with) is so important, that I just find it kind of weird we talk about "free software" when what we actually care about is free people. I start to think the very term “free software” actually muddies our thinking.
Unfortunately, I don't really have an idea for a better terminology system yet, but I think the current one needs much improvement.

We often complain that this-and-that software isn't free while we actually should usually complain about the system as whole and the people benefitting from it to the detriment of everyone else. I feel like after all these years of free software, it still hasn't really taken off. Proprietary software still dominates everywhere; "normal people" still don't talk about it very often. We're still the complete underdogs …

Just a few random unsorted thoughs …

[Julius]

Free software is just short hand for "Software distributed under a Free Software license", where "Free Software license" is used as a name as in "Free Software Foundation". This might be a bit confusing but it does describe the relationship (=license) aspect that you seem to think of.

[Wuzzy]

Yes, that's my point. It IS confusing. When I talk to random people about free software, I often have to backpadel. There are so many things that I have to unpack first before I can even get close to the interesting stuff.
Explaining free software to people who know nothing about it is NOT easy. There are also just a lot of misconceptions …