I have DRM working in Chromium :)

[Phlyra]

I blame free software advocates who frequently claim their freedom is an in speech, not as in beer. Software is code, and code is just specially syntactic information.

I'd guess the key thing that makes that code free is it's availability in original form. I'm not convinced all of my data wants to be that available, and at the same time I'm not too concerned whether I transcode a flac file to mp3 for listening on a closed device, or crop a video to remove black bars. Maybe I don't care about data freedom all that much, or maybe I just have a higher level conception about what the data actually is.

A hardback book doesn’t cause your banking data to be stolen...

 

[Null]

Bah. Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphised.

No U

Data Chan by NeoCoill.

A hardback book doesn’t cause your banking data to be stolen...

It does if someone hits you with one until you hand it over to them.

 

[pyrat]

I just have a higher level conception about what the data actually is.

Or you don't. Is a spreadsheet data or code ? a Lisp S-expression ? A detailed procedure manual ? Comments in source code are code or data ? Is Amazon software or business ?
A program is just information on how to solve a problem with a computer. Defining the limits of what is software and what not is very tricky.
The nature of information is such that it can be easily reproduced. Agustinius' "Omnia enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habentur, nondum dantur, nondum habentur, quomodo habenda est" is still true.
It aplies to information just as it applies to fire (if I give you light I don't lose my fire), love, knowledge, culture...
Artificial constructs forbidding sharing information are harmful and unnatural, because they shoehorn property rights to immaterial goods. Physical property cannot be so easily reproduced or used by more than one person at once, and hence can be owned (property can be good or bad but it is possible).
"information wants to be free" does not mean "information is a person I know and she told me she wants freedom". It means "the nature of information is such that imposing restrictions on sharing it does more harm than good to humans".
Just like "love finds a way" does not mean Cupid carries a GPS device.
Something like you can't hold water with your hands. Your legal model is so removed from the reality that maintaining it is too costly.
Software is only the form of information that may show more clearly that it has effects on computers, but it is not epistemiologically different from data.
If you insist in giving freedom to software and removing it from other forms of information you'll eventually come to contradictions. GFDL, for instance.
Still, restrictions on sharing information are important for privacy, and copyright might maybe work in a very restricted form (in the sense that as long as someone can decide not to publish a work becase he can't control its distribution, giving him the possibility to control that distribution might encourage publication, but it does also encourage abuse, which is hard to balance). But it makes no sense to separate software from information in general.

 

[levi]

Or you don't. Is a spreadsheet data or code ?

Mainly data, but formulas and later constructs are generally code. If the CPU's program counter is advanced through code that's instructions vary depending on something in a file, then it's code. Code in my model is a type of data, and code can contain data such as constants and strings.

a Lisp S-expression ?

See above. If there's instructions generated and run through the CPU then it's code. If it just contains variables then it's not.

A detailed procedure manual ?

Example commands aren't code until someone copies them into a computer and executes them. There are constraints on their forumulation such that they should work when copied into a computer, but that doesn't make them code.

Comments in source code are code or data ?

Data, commonly accompanying code in a source file. Files can and often do contain both data and code.

Is Amazon software or business ?

Amazon is a US/multinational business originally set up as a bookseller.

Amazon.com

is a simplified url that indicates a computer on the internet running their site through apache or something like that.

The only thing in writing this that surprised me was my deciphering that even variables in code are always data, and not data code. It's the conditional acting on the value of that variable that is the code.

 

[HelenF]

If your code is in a language that gets compiled to machine code at some point, then CPU instructions are generated from your code. But in a pure interpreted language, the interpreter is just branching through CPU instructions that were already there before your program came along, the same way that applications do for data files.

• I draw an SVG file and open it in a web browser. This causes certain drawing routines in the web browser to get run through the CPU.
• I write Javascript to draw some things on a canvas, and open it in a web browser. This causes certain drawing routines in the web browser to get run through the CPU.
• I write a program for Game Boy that draws some things on the screen, and run it in an emulator. This causes certain drawing routines in the emulator to get run through the CPU.

 

[netcat]

freedom zealots!

 

[levi]

If your code is in a language that gets compiled to machine code at some point, then CPU instructions are generated from your code. But in a pure interpreted language, the interpreter is just branching through CPU instructions that were already there before your program came along, the same way that applications do for data files.

• I draw an SVG file and open it in a web browser. This causes certain drawing routines in the web browser to get run through the CPU.
• I write Javascript to draw some things on a canvas, and open it in a web browser. This causes certain drawing routines in the web browser to get run through the CPU.
• I write a program for Game Boy that draws some things on the screen, and run it in an emulator. This causes certain drawing routines in the emulator to get run through the CPU.

Yes, interpreted languages might cause problems for my defintion. I was kind of simplifying by assuming that almost everything interpreted these days has a JIT which converts it into real machine code instructions on the fly, but it it doesn't do that and just runs different subroutines based on the command invoked then distinguishing that behaviour between an SVG (assuming SVG is basically just a list of bezier curves and colours and line widths) is difficult. On the other hand if SVG has conditionals and variables and is more akin to postscript, well, postscript is a Turing complete programming language.

Edit: Apparently SVG can respond to certain events by invoking javascript. I consider javascript to be code. I also consider gameboy z80 code to be code as well, even if it's actually implemented in software rather than on a real z80.

 

[HelenF]

I didn't know that about SVG. So does that mean you consider SVG to be code? My example could be a bitmap image file instead.

 

[pyrat]

Well, that JIT will see the source code and the object code as its input and output data. So with your definition the nature of information depends not on what it is what, but on what you do to it. The role is important, specially when using it, but it is not its nature because it does not confer it with the properties that define what can be done with it. Both code and data and documentation and music, video, etc can be reproduced for free, shared, improved, audited, ported to new formats, etc.They are independent of their representation (magnetism, electrons, light...). They can be encoded in many ways and still be equivalent. Or they can be encoded in ways that lose information. But the encoding, a mapping of the different possible information items to its meaning, effects, is an external convention that is not part of that information but it is needed to use it.

But I don't know why I'm arguing with you, because I think information should be free in general, but I agree that some information needs to stay confidential, and much can be shared without being public. But once it is made available to the public it should ideally all be copyleft. Just as a general rule in an ideal world, though.

And yes, SVG is XML describing points, poligons, arcs, solids, transparencies, colors, gradients... A little like XHTML. Javascript can be bolted in SVG, just as many other things, but it's not quite SVG, just like a web page can contain HTML, CSS and JS, but HTML is HTML. JS is something a little apart, a different language, integrations not withstanding.

 

[levi]

I didn't know that about SVG. So does that mean you consider SVG to be code? My example could be a bitmap image file instead.

Well, I would say that SVG files containing javascript would contain just that much code. As far as I know most bitmap formats like BMG, GIF and JPEG (maybe also PNG) don't contain any code, just data.

Edit: Of course you could steganographically hide some code in a JPEG image and probably others, but until you take it out of there and execute it it remains data and only becomes code once you run it. And you can always set the executable bit and try to run any kind of file, but mostly it will crash immediately. I'm not sure if that makes it bad code, or just data that you tried to execute.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

And four pages of nonsense debates for essentially just enabling a feature that is on the regular version of Chrome and Firefox...

Should maybe be split into another thread?

 

[levi]

To do that would leave this thread about five posts long at most...

 

[TrashyMG]

Should maybe be split into another thread?

Too much effort, just let this horse run to the glue factory...

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Personally, I would like creators to be paid fairly for their work

What if someone goes to the streets and plays music there? Ought everyone who stops to listen be obliged to pay him? After all, if no one pays then the musician would not be compansated for his work. That would not be fair. It would be fairer if a bunch of armed thugs robbed everyone who stops to listen and gave it to the musician as fair compensation for his music, right?

If one starts a business for which he needs to violate other people's property rights through a monopoly in order to make it work, then IMO he does not deserve to have it work. A fair compensation would be all of the compensation that he can get without violating other people's rights.

Bah. Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphised.

I think that it refers to the phenomenom that once information is released it takes a lot of effort to contain it again and it even takes a lot of effort just to prevent it from spreading like wildfire. Information really acts as if it wants to be free.

But the point is, unless there is such a thing as sentient information*, information just is. Any meaning or even feeling we ascribe to information is simply a human construct. Revealing this explicitly by saying:

I WANT INFORMATION TO BE FREE

I think that the correct sentence is

"A large part of society wants information to be free"

because information spreads like wildfire due to society making copies of it. The wants of many people is what makes information act as if it wants to be free.

 

[Null]

horse run to the glue factory...

I prefer Gorilla Glue myself, because it smells like colours bananas.

 

[netcat]

I prefer Gorilla Glue myself, because it smells like colours bananas.

I like it too

 

[matzesu]

Let’s say, I would want to try it out, because Minecraft doesn’t work on Pyra,
I allready looked on the synaptic software to install curl, I found something and then I copied the thread in the chromium browser because I usually use Firefox, I used the mouse to take the whole script, but there is no „Run“ or something in the right click menue..
what do I make wrong ?

 

[matzesu]

Edit: ok after installing Curl to the Pyra, I put the Script on the terminal; and it’s installed successfully, then I made a reboot, started Chromium via point and click, and got to my Netflix Side which was still logged in ^^
Then I tryed to play a video, and got the message I should install the program I thought I had by running the script via Terminal..
also there was a Chromium Media Edition new on my Start Menue but it’s ditnt run ..