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DIVE INTO FREE SOFTWARE AND COPYLEFT CULTURE!
Copyleft text. Shortened version. Full text available at:
http://kop.fact.co.uk/DIVE/
dive into > SOFTWAREFor most software packages that people normally use, there is a free and open source package that does virtually the same, sometimes much more. The difference is not so much in how you use the programme, but under what conditions you use it.Free means that you can do with it whatever you like (except denying others the same freedom). You are, for example, free to give a copy to someone else. No more illegal copying. In practice, most such software can be downloaded without charge from the Internet. Open source implies that the source code -- the code that programmers write in -- is open for inspection. Anyone can look at it and anyone can make changes to it. Even if you don't read that kind of code yourself, the fact that other people can read it is important for you too. Because it makes it impossible to hide something in the code; there can be no sneaky features that report back to someone what you are doing on your computer.Because the source code is available freely, it cannot be controlled by a single entity, say a company or a government. Rather, its development depends on the community of programmers and users. It therefore reflects their interests in having a useful program, rather than the commercial or control interests often associated with proprietary and closed software. Free and open source software is not only good software in itself, but part of a larger project for a society where information is accessible to all and flows freely. With our selection, we tried to strike the right balance in giving you tools for a broad range of needs and activities, with special emphasis on secure and reliable network access, peer-to-peer clients, collaborative web applications and stand alone applications for office work, image and audio editing.---dive into > software / PLATFORMS /OPERATING SYSTEMS (OS)
An operating system is the set of basic programmes and utilities that make your computer run. At the core of an operating system is the kernel. The kernel is the most fundamental program on the computer. It does all the basic housekeeping and lets you start other programs. Microsoft (Windows, NT, XP) and Apple (MacOS) provide operating systems.
Most free and open source operating systems are built around the Linux Kernel. This is why they are often called Linux Operating systems, even though that's technically not entirely correct (GNU/Linux would be more accurate, since many of the programs come from the GNU initiative). The choice of OS for a computer is fundamental, since it determines which programs can be run on it.Most OSs come with a graphical user interface (GUI) the kind of thing that lets you use a mouse to point'n'click (instead of doing everything via the command line). There are two highly-advanced projects for a GUI for free OSs: KDE and GNOME.
There are also several distributions that have a fully functional OS on a CD, so-called "boot CDs." They allow you to boot from the CD instead of the hard drive, testing a free OS without having to install anything on your computer. One, Dyne:bolic, is included in this CD. To test it, just reboot your computer with this CD in the CD drive and it should boot into the free OS, as long as you have an Intel-compatible PC.URL1: http://www.debian.org
DEBIAN GNU / LINUX
Author: Ian Murdock
Platform: Runs on on a wide variety of hardware architectures
Licence: GPL
The Debian Project is a worldwide group of volunteers who endeavor to produce an operating system distribution that is composed entirely of free software. The principle product of the project to date is the Debian GNU/Linux software distribution, which includes the Linux operating system kernel, and thousands of pre-packaged applications. Debian is the only distribution that is open for every developer and user to contribute their work. It is the only significant distributor of Linux that is not a commercial entity. It is the only large project with a constitution, social contract, and policy documents to organize the project.
URL2: http://www.knoppix.de
URL3: http://dynebolic.org
URL4: http://www.kde.org----dive into > software / APPLICATIONS /SOFTWARE ENABLING YOU TO CREATE CONTENT
The project GNU WinII by the GNU Generation offers a large selection of free Software for Windows. Their website offers you descriptions and links to the download pages of a wealth of programs for basically anything you would wish to do on a computer.URL1: http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/en
URL2: http://www.openoffice.org/
OPENOFFICE
Author: Distributed, initial code-base donated by Sun Microsystems.
Platforms: Windows / Mac OSX / Linux / Sun Solaris
Licence: GPL & Sun Industry Standards Source License (code), Public Document License (documentation)
OpenOffice understands itself as a free replacement of Microsoft office (and other such packages). It consists of similar components: Writer (Word), Impress (Powerpoint), Calc (Excel), and, in addition, Draw (a drawing programme). It is fully compatible with all MS Office file formats.
OpenOffice has been translated into many languages, so no need to stick to the English version.
All components are fully functional as downloaded, and there is really no reason to use MS Office anymore. Save money or get rid of illegal software on your computer which - who knows - might get you in trouble some day.
URL3: http://www.vim.org/
URL4: http://www.w3.org/2001/11/IsaViz
URL5: http://www.gimp.org/
URL6: http://www.jave.de/----
dive into > software / SELF-PUBLISHING /
PUBLISH YOUR MATERIAL ONLINE & BUILD VIRTUAL COMMUNITIESIf there is one area apart from operating systems where Open Source and Free Software have had the most visible influence and changed the whole playing field, then this is the area of content management systems and group communication on the web. The free 'engines' of content management systems, sometimes also called weblogs, that we present here make it easy for people, as individuals and as groups, to publish and regularly update content on websites, organise it in categories, manage editorial processes such as filtering and rating of content, and have lively online discussion boards. If you are an NGO or an artists' group, a student union or any other group with little money and big ideas this is the way to go. You will need some technical skills to install those systems, but once they are running they are relatively easy to maintain and adapt. Go, publish!URL1: http://www.nucleuscms.org
URL2: http://www.movabletype.org/
URL3: http://www.slashcode.com/
URL4: http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/
URL5: http://phpnuke.org/
URL6: http://www.campware.org/
URL7: http://wiki.org/
WIKI
Author: Ward Cunningham
Source Code: http://leuf.net/ww/wikidn?WikiWaySources
Licence: Open Source
Wiki is an easy-to-use collaborative platform on the Web. It is beautifully simple and open. On a Wiki Wiki Web all participants can edit any page at will, and add new pages. An easy-to-learn syntax allows a limited range of HTML formatting, but the emphasis here is not on design aspects, but on writing, formating and hyperlinking text. This makes it ideal for any group process where a document is jointly created online. Individuals can use it as well to publish their diaries and notes. Need a draft for a web-page, an outline of a book or academic paper? Wiki lets you do the job with the focus on ideas and structure, not on technical problems.
URL8: http://meta.orang.org
URL8a: http://oma.sourceforge.net
OPEN META ARCHIVE
Author: Thomas Kaulmann, Project Coordination: Frank Kunkel
Platform: Apache webserver, Perl, mod_perl, database
Licence: GPL
There are many content management systems, but there is only one OMA. The Open Meta Archive lets you categorise and publish rich media documents including text, photo, audio and video in RealMedia, Quicktime and MP3. OMA adds a new layer to two previous projects, the 'open radio archive network group' [http://orang.orang.org] and the 'open video archive' [http://ova.zkm.de]. Those systems, one for audio, one for video, gave independent publishers the opportunity to put their audiovisual content on streaming servers and add comments and annotations. With OMA, a collaborative publishing system has been built that provides an all-in-one surface for different media types. You can upload files in different audio and video formats through your web-browser and fill information into a descriptive database. XML/HTML-based templates generate web-pages automatically. With OMA, you can give important context to archived multimedia files and create a meta-narration according to your specific needs.---dive into > FREE NETWORKSSELF-MANAGED SUSTAINABLE NETWORKING
A Free Network is a telecommunications system built, owned and maintained by the people who use it, rather than a service brought to consumers by business. It is not neccessarily 'free' as in cost, but more to the point, autonomous and self-governing.A Free Network is fundamentally different to most public networks. Most public networks still utilize the resources of the existing public switched telephone network; a network owned, operated, and force-regulated by the telecoms companies (usually state-run or ex-state-run monopolies). The infrastructure of a Free Network is based on the resources of its users. Each participant in the network owns and manages their own node, each participant is responsible for what the node's role in the network is to be.Aside from the bits owned by telephone companies, the Internet is not a Free Network. Networks throughout the world share and exchange each others' traffic through agreements between institutions, governments and corporations. Users from around the world can communicate with each other (via peer-to-peer filesharing, for example), but they still move data across non-free fiber/copper. For this reason, Internet access usually costs money (you pay your local ISP, they pay a larger Network owner for the privilege of shunting your data accross other owned networks and so on) so it is not 'free as in free beer'. If you do something naughty on the network, such as criticize a corporation that has lots of heavy-handed lawyers on its payroll, these large network owners can and will unceremoniously pull your plug and the plugs of anyone they think may be connected to you. So the Internet is also not 'free as in free speech'.In the vast majority of cases, because they are built and maintained by groups of people without a financial profit incentive, access to Free Networks is close to zero cost. Free Networks exchange traffic without payment because their technology does not depend on metered services from a commercial provider or licensing fees to the Government.This introduction was adapted from URL:
http://www.picopeer.net/wiki/index.php/FreeNetworksLearn more about Free Networks and find one in your neighbourhood
http://www.freenetworks.org/The article 'A Brief History of Free Networks' by Saul Albert gives a little background to the historical context of Free Networks.
http://uo.twenteenthcentury.com/index.php/CrBriefHistoryFreeNetworks
---
dive into > LICENCES
All Free and Open Source Software is distributed under a licence, backed by the full weight of copyright law. However, whereas normal licences are designed to restrict user rights as much as possible, free and open source licences are designed to grant to the user as many rights as possible. There are many different open licences both for software and for other types of digital content. The Open Source Initiative [http://www.opensource.org] maintains a long list of them.What they all have in common is that they grant the permission to copy and distribute content freely. For software, this includes source code (the code programmers read/write) as well as binaries (the code machines read). Often included is also the right to modify the code and to redistribute the modified version. Lawyers call this the right 'to make derivative works.'All open licences are about making digital content more accessible and encouraging others to contribute to its development in whatever form or shape they desire. Open licences are about freedom to create and about preserving that freedom for all.URL1: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
GENERAL PUBLIC LICENCE
Author: Richard Stahlman <rms@gnu.org>
Licence: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this licence document, but changing it is not allowed.
The GPL is the most famous of all open licences. Free software refers to users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. These freedoms are guaranteed. It creates four basic freedoms:
1 Freedom to use. A GPL licensed program can be used for any purpose whatsoever.
2 Freedom to copy and distribute. You are allowed to make exact copies and distribute these, in both source and binary code, as long as you grant the same right to the person you distribute it too.
3 Freedom to modify. You are allowed to modify the code in whatever way you want.
4 Freedom to copy and distribute modifications. Again, the distribution has to be in source and binary code, and it has to grant the same right to the person it is distributed to.In effect, code once put under the GPL cannot be taken out of the GPL anymore, since all rights are granted under the condition that you grant those rights to the next person as well, should you choose to distribute the program. Also, if you include GPL code in another programme, you have to put the entire code under the GPL. This ensures that code base continues to grow and the new additions are made accessible to the community as a whole.URL2: http://www.eff.org/IP/Open_licenses/eff_oal.html
EFF FREE AUDIO LICENCE
Author: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Licence: eff free audio licence
EFF's Open Audio License provides a legal tool to use music and other expressive works in new ways. It allows artists to grant the public permission to copy, distribute, adapt, and publicly perform their works royalty-free as long as credit is given to the creator as the Original Author and the license is maintained. It is modeled after the GPL, which means the rights are granted "irrevocably and perpetually", as is stated explicitly.URL3: http://www.artlibre.org/licence.php/lalgb.html
FREE ART LICENCE
Author: participants of the meeting "Copyleft Attitude" at "AccEs Local" and "Public", Paris (early 2000)
"The intention is to make work accessible and to authorize the use of its resources by the greatest number of people: to use it in order to increase its use, to create new conditions for creation in order to multiply the possibilities of creation, while respecting the originators in according them recognition and defending their moral rights."
Modeled after the GPL, the Free Art License can be applied to digital as well as non-digital art. It introduces the distinction between the original and the copy, mandating that the original remains under the sole authority of the artist, but the copy is freely available and modifiable, as long as the licence is maintained. Each modification is a "subsequent original."URL4: http://www.creativecommons.org
CREATIVE COMMONS
Author: distributed
Creative Commons (CC) is a project to make it easy for content creators to choose the right license under which to make their work available to the public. CC offers an easy-to-use web-form that allows the users to specify basic variables of the licence; for example, whether or not modifications are allowed. Once all variables are set, then CC creates the license in three different versions. One version is easy to understand for non-lawyers, which lets the creator communicate efficiently how s/he want to have to content used. A second version is a legally binding text, the type that lawyers like. The final version is a machine-readable version, designed to inter-operate with digital rights management systems to ensure that properly licensed content remains accessible.DIVE - WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM OF PIRACY!
Dive into free software and copyleft culture!
Get to know the exhibition, events and ideas created, collected and presented by <KOP>!
Try out the GNU / Linux distribution Dynebolic!
> The DIVE CD ROM presents:
1. An introduction to the world of free software, free networks and collaborative online activities
2. A documentation of the project Kingdom of Piracy <KOP> during its residency at FACT, Liverpool
3. dynebolic, the bootable GNU / Linux distribution> The DIVE CD ROM was created by <KOP> and commissioned by the VirtualCentre-Media.Net and FACT.
> To obtain your own copy of DIVE, either download the ISO image (653 MB) or order a copy online:
http://kop.fact.co.uk/DIVE/cd/dive/download.html
http://kop.fact.co.uk/DIVE/cd/dive/order.html> Credits and Acknowledgements for DIVE:
Published in 2003 by the VirtualCentre-Media.net.
Co-produced by FACT, Liverpool.
Funding provided by the Culture2000 programme.
Editor / Concept: Armin Medosch
Contributors: Saul Albert, August Black, Felix Stalder
dynebolic: dyne.org
CD mastering: jaromil
Artworks: r a d i o q u a l i a, Harwood, Shu Lea Cheang, the Yes Men, doubleNegatives, I/O/D, epidemiC, Nullpointer, 0100101110101101.org, Greg Sidal, LAN
Design: Yippieyeah
Advisors: Florian Cramer, Pit Schultz, Yukiko Shikata, Sota Ichikawa, 0100101110101101.ORG
Copy Editing: Helen Tookey
Printing: Tower Printing Ltd.
CD replication: databiz
Project management: Michael Connor
Project assistance: Hilary Thorn, Cathy Shive
Kingdom of Piracy is jointly created by Shu Lea Cheang, Armin Medosch, Yukiko Shikata
