28
votes
Richard Stallman on using the word "content" to describe works
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- Title
- Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
- Word count
- 8443 words
There was a great post railing against the word "content" with a killer lead line:
As soon as I read that it was clear how reductive of a word it is. RMS sucks, but I think his citations are on the money here.
Sounds like etymological fallacy. I don't think the word "content" in the current meaning implies a "commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money".
Regardless of the causal relationship between the ubiquitous use of the word "content" and the trend will now describe, I think "commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money" unfortunately increasingly reflects our actual attitudes towards creative works, and the deliberate use of the word in that sense is still common because a work's status as an interchangeable commodity that serves to fill a box is important to some of the biggest companies in the world. More important than the status of being a work itself, as is becoming more apparent now that these companies are increasingly using non-works to serve as content for their platforms.
I can't speak for everyone else, but there has definitely also been a change in how I approach viewing, reading and listening to creative works in the past 20 years that I also see in friends and family. 20 years ago, someone might have said that about the 20 years before, but I think we would have described the same trend: a work is increasingly expected to be one item of many that fills our free time throughout any given day. I've not only grown less appreciative, but less discerning in what I view, read and listen to. It's become less of a mindful activity and more of a passive default to kill time. This speaks to the success of "content providers", television networks and platform operators which view "content" exacly as Richard Stallman describes.
When multiple meanings the use of a word is the potential source of equivocation I think we should be wary of using it or accepting its use without further definition. We use language as a proxy for concepts in our reasoning, a fact that has been exploited over and over again throughout history in order to manipulate. If we use language that doesn't conflate two very different views on the important qualities of works, maybe we will be more mindful of the difference.
For similar reasons I am wary of when people talk about "freedom", "democracy" and "extremism". Like "content", these aren't merely words whose definition have changed over time, but words which mean different things to different people in different contexts. They are frequent sources of both deliberate and accidental equivocation.
In this vein, some of Stallman's other spicy takes are surrounding the use of phrases like "sexual assault."
The point is that the word "assault" does automatically (and tbh, for good reason) short circuit our brains to assume the worst. And there is definitely a spectrum of offences that fall under that term, where I do feel that short-circuit is unfair.
Like, even within my own journeys purusing Megans List before going to buy a home, the umbrella is so huge. And while everybody on it almost definitely needs to be, there are so many offenders that it's really about figuring "is this just a flasher creep we need to avoid, or is this someone who might snatch my kids and rape them." Corruption of a minor ranges from "videotaping child porn" to "smoking a joint within 500m of a school." One of these is a major problem, and the other is a triviality that is more likely a cop abusing power than an actual problem. But they show up the same on the list.
There is a reason that in 1984 one of the defining traits was that doublespeak, truncated language. When you place things permanently in excessively large buckets, nuances about the differences fade away.
Same tbh. Some of the entries on that page reek of condescension, as if GNU (despite obviously being a hugely important org for giving users control of their software) is the ultimate authority on the use of the English language in relation to computing. My two favourite quotes:
Under "FLOSS":
"Neutrality" in this case not meaning FLOSS vs. proprietary software, but the free software community vs. open source. Not ashamed to admit that I still don't fully get the difference after reading every entry.
Under "Hacker":
While I'm familiar with both definitions, I know what my parents, and most of my friends, will say if I ask them what a "hacker" is...
IMO they (let's not kid ourselves, though, this is probably all RMS' writings) have a variety of takes of...varying quality. Some completely inane stuff like the insistence that Linux is "merely a component of the GNU operating system" despite many years of evidence that Linux is used (and successfully so) even without GNU software.
Still, I think there is the occasional nugget of wisdom. The take on "content" specifically resonates with me.
The difference between open source and free software, as used here;
My car uses open source software extensively. I can get a look at it if I follow some Vogon-like procedure. But if I want to actually use this source to, you know, flash my car's firmware, I can go pound sand.
Google's use of Android is Open Source; piggybacking on open source software, while locking more and more of the bits behind proprietary software.
The free software community hates this. To them, the ideal form of software is completly unencumbered by copyright, patents, and crypto locks.
The GPL is a subversive exploit of copyright intended to defacto accomplish that. It is a political statement.
It's critics, usuallly the ones who like the umbrella Open Source, call it a virus intended to wreak the legal protections of proprietary code. They're not wrong, but they misunderstand: that it is the point.
Open source licenses don't mandate that the source code of derived software is made available to users at all. It's only open until someone decides that their changes aren't. If your car manufacturer offers to give you source code it's probably because some parts of their systems use GPL licensed software.
I worked with proprietary embedded software and because the systems we designed incorporated Linux (which is licensed under GPLv2) with changes to add platform support code and drivers we honored the license by giving the source code of that to anyone requesting it. In the application code, however, we were strictly prohibited from using GPL code at all.
What you describe is called "tivoization". Earlier GNU licenses like GPLv2 don't address this problem at all, so Linux is often "tivoized": free software that you can retrieve the source code of but that you can't modify and use in place of the original program.
And that's the exact difference between open source and the free software movement.
Open source advocates don't necessarily see tivoization as a bad thing. Free software advocates do, and that's why we have the GPLv3.
Linus's greatest unintentional blunder was adopting GPLv2 only. If it had been permitted to graduate to V3 tivoization could be dead and gone.
No, it's the difference between GPLv2 and GPLv3, both GNU license templates created by the Free Software Foundation, neither compatible with OSI's definition of Open Source.
Pardon? All of the GPL licenses are OSI certified.
https://opensource.org/license/gpl-3.0
I'll beat this drum forever; The primary differentiating factor between the broader open source supporters and the free software movement is that the free software movement wants all software to be copyleft, wheras the broader open source movement mostly just wants it as cheap/free foundation for their proprietary software.
Most people probably don't remember just how controversial it was when Microsoft started edging their way into the OSI, considering that leading up to their first submission of a licence in 2005 for approval they were still trying to form a patent violation case against Linux.
Oh man... Yes, my bad.
Nevertheless, GPLv2 is a GNU license using copyleft principles to ensure Free software.
I don't disagree with this at all. I do however disagree that the difference between Open Source and Free software is exemplified by the difference between two versions of GPL, both designed to ensure Free software.
The more strictly user freedom-preserving GNU license would be Affero GPL v3. I don't take that to imply that less user freedom-preserving licenses like GPLv3 or GPLv2 aren't Free software licenses. They are different, more or less strict Free software licenses.
I think the current use of "content" implies that the created works are to some degree transient. Even if the actual creation stays in the platform for years, it is only relevant for a period of time. It feeds into the consumerism attitude that you read / watch / listen to something once, or maybe some limited amount of times, and then you forget about it and get obsessed with something else. It is indeed the way a production company would see its creations, as opposed to something more permanent like a old painting or book.
I think it is fine as a term. Youtubers are most of the time actual production companies anyway. No one is trying to create cultural milestones, just stuff that is interesting enough that people watch their adds or subscribe to some kind of patronage.
Not trying to be judgemental about not creating cultural milestones either. I think focusing on patronage rather than great works is the right move for an art/culture/content creator nowadays. I think a word like "works" is more useful for someone like a critic, or maybe someone analyzing the "content" from outside the context it was created in. It feels too big and important for a creator or its public, honestly.