(Game art is a different issue, because it isn't software.)
First, I think that as people who write code, RMS and the FSF don't immediately see value in things other than code, and in particular don't see the value in supporting a community of developers around something other than code. If you don't know how to produce something, you might not see the value in making it open, because you personally don't have the ability to contribute to it. Many non-programmers don't immediately see the value in Free Software / Open Source Software, because they don't personally have the ability to contribute to it.
Second, the FSF has produced a large number of works of opinion, and they have rather specific thoughts about what they want done with those opinions, which for some reason they don't see as inconsistent with their views on software. Note that all of the essays on gnu.org/philosophy/ have a license that allows redistribution but not modification; in many different places, they've expressed the opinion that works of opinion need not have free licenses, because changing such works would change the opinions expressed.
Personally, this seems entirely wrong to me. If I take a copy of CSS3 and modify it, it no longer matches the CSS3 standard. However, I could still usefully use it for other purposes, such as talking about the implications of different CSS models, or making a proposal for what I'd like to see in CSS. And if for some reason I attempted to describe my modified version as CSS3 (or CSS3.1), that would make it no different than any other random bit of factual inaccuracy or buggy code on the Internet. The same goes for a modified version of a philosophical essay, or the script or art for a game.
> Specifically, free software means users have the four essential freedoms: (0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the program in source code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to distribute modified versions.
Not all these freedoms make sense for "non-functional work" like art. RMS outlines some of his views here: http://www.libervis.com/article/rms_on_the_ethics_of_non_fre... Paraphrasing, art (as opposed to software) is something contributed to society for enjoyment, software is for work. The minimal freedom of art should be shareable for non-commercial uses, with a max copyright of 10 years before people can create derivative works for commercial use.
I imagine there might be (or could be) a license that asks for the "source" of art assets; that is, a .PSD file, or a blender project, or a script that generates the image. That's a lot more useful to me than the final image itself, and a lot easier to modify if I wanted.
If there would be such a license, one could still argue it offers not the most freedom possible. To take it to the extreme, the license could ask that all assets have to be in a format editable/compatible with FOSS :)
As soon as someone stands up and tells me how I can or cannot use something, freedom is gone, no?
The GPL license does indeed restrict some things that could be regarded as freedoms, for example the freedom to distribute a closed source version (distribution only, you are allowed to create a closed source derivative as long you keep it to yourself).
It's a bit like "you have the freedom to do anything you want apart from restrict another person's freedom"
In software, however, they are not arguing for liberty and the rule of law, they're arguing for true freedom.
I guess they have drawn a line in the sand and said that any less free is unacceptable, however, more free is also unacceptable.
I believe Stallman originally wanted to call it "libre software" but there wasn't an equivalent word in english so instead he went with "free software" and thus the confusion was born.
The line in the sand the GPL draws is specifically for the purpose of preventing closed versions of open source software (which would be against the original authors wishes). There are of course more liberal licenses such as the MIT license which do allow you to do this.
Can I do whatever I want?
Then it ain't freedom.
The problem with public domain is that outside of the US, in some countries "public domain" is actually more restrictive than e.g. the MIT license. So if you want to help users worldwide, you either need to research local laws or use a simple US-law-based license.
The benefit of the GPL, as I like to phrase it, is that it chains its users with freedom whether they like it or not. It's a very viral license and infects a lot that it touches. (Some businesses are even worried that the GPLv3 is vague enough that "distribution" could mean over the web, which would make the AGPLv3 redundant.) If you look at Stallman's free software song, particularly the part that goes "When we have enough free software/at our call, hackers, at our call/we'll kick out those dirty licenses/evermore, hackers, evermore", you can interpret that as saying once enough software respects user freedoms by default, then yes, we don't need the concept of licenses anymore to force it upon them. The GPL uses copyright as a weapon, as do the Copyleft folks, as do the MIT/etc license folks. As a side quip, this is also similar to basic Communist philosophy: you just need totalitarian control for a little while to set everything up, then the government can dissolve itself and everyone will continue working together.
The MIT/etc. license folks subscribe to the idea that the more things you can do, the more freedom you have. While this is true as a single developer, if you again take into account the end-user freedom then the utilitarian argument can go either way. A program licensed under the GPL makes sure all users of that program and its derivatives are free, regardless of its popularity. A program licensed under the MIT leaves the door open for someone to take that code and put it into another program that's licensed under something restrictive, and all of that program's users are not free. However, some programs don't become popular precisely because of the (A)GPL, whereas an MIT project that's used in a popular project (regardless of that derivative project being MIT) often becomes popular itself.
So for the GPL, the total freedom utility is just num_users for the program and all its derivatives. For MIT, if a non-free user is as bad as a free user is good, it's num_users_under_free_license - num_users_under_nonfree. You can see what needs to be satisfied to choose one over the other. There's also a factor involved for profit if you or someone else wants to make money on the software without the risk of legal source-or-binary redistributions.
I think Stallman recognizes the tradeoffs as well, I've read somewhere he doesn't like but accepts the idea of software (such as video games) initially launching as proprietary while it's in its peak profit window (first few weeks for games, traditionally, though that is changing with DLC), and then later relicensing as open source. Same thing with dual licensing.
This is used in the GPL :
"The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
And also in the "open source definition" that can be used to judge whether something is free software or not :
"The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program." [1]
That's true for text too ; for example most pages on gnu.org are licensed under CC-BY-ND.
Unfortunately, as the -NC and -ND licenses add restrictions, some distributions such as Debian don't consider it free software (cf. [DFSG]).
It can not. The definition are very similar, but they're still distinct.
If you want to judge whether something is Free Software, you need to read the source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
How is a game for work? To qualify this, I don't necessarily disagree completely with RMS' aims for free and open software, but I don't see the functional distinction between the functionality of a game and the art used in the game.
"If you use something to do jobs in your life, you must be free to change it today, and then distribute your changed version today in case others need what you need.
"Art contributes something different to society. You appreciate it. Modifying art can be a further contribution to art, but it is not crucial to be able to do that today. If you had to wait 10 years for the copyright to expire, that would be ok."
So it's more that a program is a tool for work, such as simulating physics, running an AI state machine, animating skeletons, or rendering polygons, while art is just there to look at. You could argue that the game isn't complete without both, and you'd be right, but the art can be swapped out for random pixels and the game will still work whereas the code cannot be swapped with random other code. The functional distinction comes from software being breakable, it's a machine. Art isn't really breakable, it's just ugly (to some people).
If the physics engine of a Free game has a bug, users could fix it themselves and announce their changes in case someone else hits that bug--or even report it to the game maker's public bug tracker with a patch. There's also a factor of urgency involved that I didn't mention in my paraphrasing. If a game is broken, it needs a patch ASAP. If it's just ugly (to some people), that doesn't really need to be fixed right away. Plus if non-commercial modification is allowed, people who find it ugly can release "better" versions (which may be new assets or may be a hack to the game engine that adds new shader programs).
It does seem to get more complicated in the video game world where sometimes the distinction between program and art is blurred. In a hypothetical game with a completely free engine, I'd expect the non-free "art" to consist of base graphics that are manipulated by the engine. The manipulating code is free (and will work for any piece of art fitting the requirements it has, which may be quite restrictive), the input to the engine is not.
1) A Windows Metafile (A list of commands to send to the windows GDI API, used to store images, but may also run code)
2) An SVG
3) An SVG that is programatically generated animated with Lua
4) A demoscene type demo
5) A postscript document
6) These postscript documents: http://home.thep.lu.se/~bjorn/postscript/
What's the difference between that and being allowed to sample or re-edit music and video and redistribute it?
The closest he gets to extending out of his little bubble is that copyright should be 10 years only and then everything is public.
Creative Commons has adopted the language of "Free Culture Approved" for licenses which meet this definition. Not all CC licenses do (in particular, non-commercial or no derivatives clauses are incompatible).