Re: [tlug] Proprietary derivatives of FLOSS and other absurdities [was: Why Hollywood does break foreign films ?]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

tl;dr version:

When speaking of doing things with an abstract work, the meaning
should be taken to be something like "a human does something with an
arbitrary actual copy embodying the abtract work".

Benjamin Tayehanpour writes:
 > On 15 August 2013 14:57, Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com> wrote:
 > > You cannot, as far
 > > as I can tell, grant any sort of freedom to an abstract work, since an
 > > abstract work contemplates no actions to be restricted or not.
 > 
 > You can grant freedoms pertaining to the interaction with said
 > abstract work, however. Semantically I guess it's a type of pathetic
 > fallacy[1], but it's perfectly sane to do so.

Well then, the law may not be able to compel an impossibility, but
evidently it envisions one: that abstract work may be embodied in a
medium.

Note that an "abstract work" is not meant in the sense of a Platonic
Ideal, but rather as one that is disembodied, an emergent property of
one or more human brains.[1]

In any case, as Curt points out, I miswrote (used synecdoche where
context demanded accurate expression) when I wrote things like "[some
work of] software is free.  RMS himself always (correctly) insists
that freedom is for humans.  "Free software" is an abbreviation of
"freely licensed copy of a work of software", and that the actor is
always the (eventually human, even as a member of a corporate person)
recipient of the license.

Note that "pathetic fallacy" is not actually a fallacy in the logical
sense, and is not necessarily an impediment to communication or
correct reasoning.


Footnotes: 
[1]  At least with present technology, it's emergent, and cannot be
analyzed into a pattern of neural activity.