[politics] [d@DCC] Law as code: Understanding the dilemma around a royalty-bearing Internet.

[tOM Trottier]

On 3 Sep 2004 at 12:00,
Russell McOrmond <discuss at digital-copyright.ca> wrote:

... 
>   This is the first draft of an idea that I am looking for help on.  I am
>    One of the most powerful tools I have found recently for explaining the
>    larger legal, political and social implications of computer software is
>    Lawrence Lessig's suggestion that "code is law"9. In this case I want to
>    reverse this and suggest that law can also be understood in terms of code.

I  think you will have to explain what "code" means to non-computer types. 
Codes to them are either sets of laws ("The Code of Hammurabi") or 
encrypted material. They have no conception what "source code" or "object 
code" means, or where the term came from.

>    For the purpose of this analogy, lets understand a license agreement as a
>    form of "code", an application program, that is executed within an
>    environment that includes hardware and the operating system. An operating
>    system provides various features that an application can use. Most
>    computer users know that different applications are compiled for different
>    operating systems: that an application written for Microsoft Windows will
>    not run on MacOS-X or Linux10.

Ditto for "application" and "compiled" 

A short para like:
    In the computer world, "applications", or computer programs, are written in 
    "source code" which consists for instructions like A=B; While (C=D)..., IF 
    A=X Then... These instructions are then usually then "compiled" by another 
    computer program into binary "machine code" or "object code" where the 
    actions are replaced by computer instructions like 0010101 and addresses of 
    data in the computer, which also look like 01000111. The object code then 
    runs on the actual machine. To accommodate different kinds of computer 
    hardware, provide common functions to computer programs, and manage several 
    programs runnig at the same time, a governing "Operating System" program 
    provides various facilities like printing or data storage to the 
    applications.
would be useful, Yeah, I know, oversimplified...
 

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