{"id":19,"date":"2006-05-09T00:25:29","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T22:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/free-beer.dk\/blog\/reviews\/"},"modified":"2010-09-20T10:01:09","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T08:01:09","slug":"reviews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/reviews","title":{"rendered":"Reviews and other comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Lessig on FREE BEER:<\/b>
\nLessig sez: “Thanks for the Beer. It arrived yesterday, and we opened it at the CC office at the end of the day.As you’ll see from the photo it took some time before we could find a camera. That means lots was consumed before the picture. It is, in my view, the best beer I’ve had this year. The Guarana is a perfect addition, both because of its effect (I got lots of work done last night, late into the night!) and its source (Brazil is my favorite Free Culture country). Thank you for the project, for the idealism, for the excitement, and for the beer”.
\nlink to image<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"Jimbo
\nJimbo Wales – the founder of Wikipedia<\/a> – does too, in this priceless series from Creative Commons UK:link<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And here is Cory Doctorow<\/a>, sci-fi buff, electronic rights activist and editor of Boing Boing<\/a> enjoying FREE BEER at the launch, which coincided with Reboot 7 in Copenhagen (from Doc Searls’ flickrstream<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Richard Stallman on FREE BEER<\/b>
\nInterviewed by Henrik Moltke<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download the audio from archive.org<\/p>\n

So, my name is Henrik. I\u2019m calling on behalf of Superflex<\/em>
\nSorry – you said Super-what?
\n Superflex<\/em>
\nI don\u2019t recall that name
\n Do you remember the \u2018Free Beer\u2019?<\/em>
\nYes
\n Ok. What we hoped to do with you was to ask you to taste and review the beer-<\/em>
\nIt wouldn\u00b4t work because I don\u2019t like beer. Also, I don\u2019t like the emphasis that most people put on getting drunk. I have only gotten drunk once in my life and that was on a transatlantic flight when I\u2019d made the mistake of putting my sleeping pills into my suitcase which I checked\u2026 So, I tried using whiskey to achieve the same effect. It didn\u2019t work very well partly because it was so disgusting I could hardly swallow it –
\n Did you manage to sleep in the end?<\/em>
\nI slept a little bit
\n But I was thinking that we could try and do something remotely similar to a review – without actually talking about the taste and the hue \u2013<\/em>
\nOk.
\n – so if you could pretend that you were reviewing the idea of a free beer?<\/em>
\nI love the idea as long as I don\u2019t have to drink it
\n I was wondering about the name. Because, most people will think about this only as free beer in the free beer sense but there is another\u2026<\/em>
\nBut are you selling samples of it?
\n Well, actually, we do sell \u2018free beer\u2019 in our shop, but we also \u2013<\/em>
\nI hope so. It probably costs you money to produce a batch so it makes sense to sell bottles of it or glasses of it and so that will make people think: they\u2019 ll see this is free in the sense of freedom but its not gratis.
\n Exactly. That was also the concept from day one. Do you have anything against or for naming a beer, \u2018free beer\u2019?<\/em>
\nI like the idea cause it\u2019s a cute way of making a point
\n And could it be called a hack, in the sense of –<\/em>
\nYes it is a hack; cause playful cleverness is hacking so this is a hack.
\n I remember that we received an email from you a couple of months back with some very constructive comments about intellectual property and the way we use them –<\/em>
\nWell actually my comments may have been about, quote intellectual property unquote
\n Exactly!<\/em>
\nCause I never talk about\u2026 I never use that term to describe anything
\n That\u2019s what you were telling us –<\/em>
\nAnd it\u2019s a mistake to do so because that term mixes together various different laws with totally different effects as if they were a single thing. So anyone who tries to think about the supposed, quote issue of intellectual property unquote, is already so badly confused that he can\u2019t think clearly about it.
\n Now, in the same email, you also suggest that we call the beer a free software beer instead of an open source beer-<\/em>
\nYes, I founded the free software movement. Open Source is a term used to co-opt our work; to separate our work from the ideals that motivated it. See, we developed software that users are free to run and share and change as they wish for the sake of freedom, because those freedoms, we believe, are essential. Then there were millions of people who appreciated the software and appreciated the chance to share and change it and found that it was very good software too. But they didn\u2019t want to present this as an ethical issue, so they started using a different term,\u2018open source\u2019, as a way to describe the same software without ever bringing it up as an ethical issue; as a matter of freedoms that people are entitled to. They are entitled to their opinions but I don\u2019t share their opinions and I hope you don\u2019t either. So to support awareness of the ethical issues of free software the most basic thing to do is talk about free software.
\n Do you think this will come about by discussing, for example, a beer that actually isn\u2019t software?<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s a similar kind of issue arising here. A beer doesn\u2019t actually have source code either. A recipe is not like source code, you can\u2019t just compile it. There is no programme that turns the recipe into food.
\n What if we speak about the general idea of taking ideas from the \u2018free software\u2019 movement, and the \u2018open source\u2019 movement even, and transferring those values onto something which is not software?<\/em>
\nI\u2019m all in favour of it whenever they are applicable. These ideas make sense in one context, they may make sense in another context, but that\u2019s not guaranteed. They\u2019re not applicable to everything in life; they\u2019re applicable to certain things. Specifically, they\u2019re applicable when there are works made of information that are useful
\n So where do you draw the line? Does an \u2018open source\u2019 cookbook make more sense than an \u2018open source\u2019 car –<\/em>
\nI\u2019d rather not use the term \u2018open source.\u2019 I\u2019m not a supporter of the \u2018open source\u2019 movement
\n I\u2019m sorry. That\u2019s a problem, that -.<\/em>
\nRecipes should be free.
\n But I was wondering is there a way that we can use this word in a better way when speaking about an \u2018open source\u2019 beer? Because – a \u2018free software\u2019 beer also sounds strange?<\/em>
\nYes, they both are strange. Neither one really fits because beer is not software and has no source. So, if you\u2019re going to strain things to refer to a movement, you might as well pick the movement you support
\n Because we\u2019ve taken a bit from one and a bit from the other –<\/em>
\nAnyway –
\n We tried to recount the whole story of what happened in the early Seventies up to now to try to explain what the idea of the beer was and I find this quite complex –<\/em>
\nIt is.
\n Is there any way that these kinds of ideas could travel to the minds of people in an easier way?<\/em>
\nWell, I find that recipes make a good analogy for explaining the ideas of free software to people. Those people who cook commonly share recipes and commonly change recipes and they take for granted that they\u2019re free to cook recipes when they wish. So, imagine if the government took away those freedoms. If they said, \u2018starting today if you copy and share or change a recipe, we\u2019ll call you a pirate.\u2019 Imagine how angry they would be. Well that anger is the exact anger that I felt when they said I couldn\u2019t change and share software anymore. And I said, \u2018no way, I refuse to accept that.\u2019
\n Why do you think this had to happen within software and computers? Why haven\u2019t people demanded the same kind of freedoms before?<\/em>
\nWell there weren\u2019t enough people using computers and in the early days software was free, usually. It was in the Seventies that software became usually proprietary and that change for the worse was complete by the early Eighties. But I had had the experience of participating in a community of programmers, where sharing software was normal and when it disappeared and died and I saw a morally ugly way of life as my probable future, I rejected that.
\n That happened back in the beginning of the Eighties as far as I can –<\/em>
\nThat was back in 1983 that I formed the \u2018free software\u2019 movement and launched a plan to develop a free software operating system, so that we could use computers and have this freedom.
\n Do you think the way that things are now and the way that you have a GNU \/Linux option or you can do many things with \u2018open source\u2019 software<\/em>
\nPlease don\u2019t –
\n I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry-<\/em>
\nI don\u2019t want you to use the term \u2018open source\u2019
\n I\u2019m very sorry<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s not what I stand for. You\u2019re putting me in a very bad position by talking with me about my work and using the term that the name of a party that was formed to reject my views uses.
\n This is something that is very difficult for some one like me to understand because I am not a computer programmer. I am not someone who has lived this for twenty years. So, for me it is difficult even though I am trying to –<\/em>
\nThink of \u2018open source\u2019 and \u2018free software\u2019 as the name of two different political parties –
\n I fully understand that –<\/em>
\n– with different programmes. If you invited a leader from the Green Party \u2013 which, by the way I more or less support \u2013 and you started to talk to him about his work in the Conservative Party and you did that several times, he\u2019d probably get mad at you.
\n Mm. I can imagine that this is something that happens often with the popular press and journalists?<\/em>
\nYes. Yes it does. In fact, before I give an interview I raise this issue and I make sure they have agreed not to do this because it would be pointless to do an interview if I\u2019ll be misreported as a supporter of \u2018open source\u2019
\n Well, actually, I did my homework – and I find that this must be something that would be as difficult for ordinary people –<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s not that difficult. You\u2019re talking about changing a habit. It takes a little bit of work and you make mistakes a few times but don\u2019t exaggerate it
\n No –<\/em>
\nYou can change a habit
\n When you started the free software movement and the GNU project, did you ever imagine that these kind of ideas would travel outside of the software world to something like a beer or –<\/em>
\nNo I didn\u2019t think for a minute about that
\n When did that start happening? When did you start seeing these possibilities?<\/em>
\nAbout five years ago, more or less
\n Ok. Is that what you think will happen in the future from now on?<\/em>
\nWell I hope so. But, mainly what I hoping and working for is that software should be free.
\n And do you think a project like this will help?<\/em>
\nYes, it\u00b4ll help. It will bring the ideas home to people who wouldn\u2019t have thought about them otherwise, and that\u2019s useful
\n I hope this will get some repercussions and that we can use this-<\/em>
\nSo happy hacking!<\/p>\n

Slashdot<\/a> comment<\/b>
\n“As everyone knows free beer will make you drink more and get drunk. When you get drunk you will speak more freely. So it will be free speach by free beer.”<\/p>\n

Wired News: Free Beer for Geeks<\/a><\/b>
\n“The recipe and brand of their beer is published under a Creative Commons<\/a> license, which means anyone can use the recipe for pleasure or profit.The only catch: If you make money selling their unique beer, you have to give them credit and publish any changes you make to the recipe under a similar license”.<\/p>\n

Slashdot<\/a> comment<\/b>
\n“Its free as in Free beer, but not as in free beer.
\nShame. *hic*”.<\/p>\n

CBC Radio interviews Rasmus Nielsen from Superflex – listen here<\/a> (Real media)<\/b>
\n\u201cWhen you hear the words open source<\/em> most people think of computer software programs like Linux. It’s a model where the original “source code” can be modified and improved at no cost…and it’s shared among users for free. Well now beer is free too”.<\/p>\n

Slashdot<\/a> comment<\/b>
\n“Free Beer is one thing..
\nTrusting the Danish for your free beer is quite another
\n*ducks*”<\/p>\n

BBC News: ‘Free’ Danish beer makes a splash.<\/a><\/b>
\n“The Danes love their beer, but increasingly they are looking beyond the old Danish standby, Carlsberg, to quench their thirst”.<\/p>\n

Slashdot<\/a> comment.<\/b>
\n“mmmmmm danishhhhh ….. beer? danishhhhhhh …. mmmm ..beerrrr…… danish? …..that would confuse the fuck out of homer simpson!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry Lessig on FREE BEER: Lessig sez: “Thanks for the Beer. It arrived yesterday, and we opened it at the CC office at the end of the day.As you’ll see from the photo it took some time before we could find a camera. That means lots was consumed before the picture. It is, in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebeer.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}