Free Beer That's Free as in Speech

darkonc writes "The CBC has notes and an interview with Dane Rasmus Nielsen who decided to reduce the confusion between 'free as in speech' and 'free as in beer' by making a beer free -- in speech. The result is Vores Oel, an open source beer. The CBC site includes the recipe for the beer which is made with Guarana beans, and gives it a bit of a caffeine-like hit. The danish site downloads include the label for the beer (which is also Open Source)."

reduce the confusion?

[xlyz]

... or increase it???

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

[datafr0g]

Whenever I complained about some open source app not doing what I wanted it to, some dude would always come along and whine something like, "it's free, it's open source - fix it yerself"....

Ahem... (clears throat)

"Quit complaining! it's free, it's open source! Fix it yerself"

But seriously, I agree - it definitly doesn't look ready for a version 1.0 release right now.

:-)

Beer is already free (as in speech)

[Trurl's Machine]

Sorry folks, but that's just plainly stupid. All IP issues with recipe for beer should be settled with Hildegard of Bingen [fordham.edu]. This German Benedictine nun was the first author to suggest that adding hops to the disgusting fluid hitherto known as beer will be generally a good idea. Since the age of Hildegard (12 century), no significant progress has been made in this topic - she has described the beer as we know it today. And as it was with many medieval philospophers, Hildegard created her "intellectual property" just "ad maiorem Dei gloriam", feel free to copy for the greater God's glory. So there is no need to make "open source beer" today - it was open source since last eight centuries.

Personally, I think the idea of adding guarana to beer is just plainly insane. Beer is meant to relax people. If I want to stay alert and awake I can drink coffee or energy drinks. Beer is something to drink when the work is over and you can relax. Guarana beer is like coffee with sleeping pills.

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

[Vellmont]

The problem is that it's impossible to even know what they're even trying to create in the first place. Without some kind of guideline to start with you might as well ignore the recipe they came up with and use your own.

It's as if you've got a collection of code that's incomplete, but you're not sure what the completed product was actually supposed to do. How would you possibly fill in the missing pieces of code?

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

[kailoran]

It's simple - you fork. OSB-Lager, OSB-Ale etc...

Re:reduce the confusion?

[hobbit]

Yup. Not that it isn't already confusing enough:

Me to friend not well-versed in libre: "No, that's free as in beer."
Friend: "Beer isn't free."
Me: "Well, no. But when it is, it's free-as-in-beer."
Friend: "Er, right. Suddenly everything becomes clear-as-in-mud."
Me: "Actually it recently got a bit more complicated..."

Free-as-in-speech beer is all well and good, but I'd really like to see some of this free-as-in-beer beer that everyone talks about.

Re:caffeine LIKE?

[shawb]

And the caffeine in coffee and chocolate ISN'T natural? Natural != healthy. The nicotine found in tobacco is perfectly natural: the plant makes it as an insecticide. And even though it's perfectly natural, I doubt snake venom beer would be very good for you (okay, okay, it has been found that small doses of certain snake venoms can actually help patients overcome certain disorders, but in general, not a good idea.) Or how about a nice tetrodotoxin [emedicine.com]saki? It's made from the all natural pufferfish, a Japanese delicacy.

And then there's the fact that guarana has not been evaluated by the FDA for safety, effectiveness, or purity. All potential risks and/or advantages of guarana may not be known. Additionally, there are no regulated manufacturing standards in place.

Now, the caffeine in guarana beans is generally disgested much slower than in, say, a cup of coffee. However the effect when you grind up the bean and mix it with a carbonated alcoholic beverage would probably be to extract the caffeine directly into the liquid, where it can be digested quicker. Not that I'm against mixing caffeine and alcohol within moderation... just as long as you know what's going on and understand that, yes, you are taking risks.

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

[Mr2001]

Is this an Ale or a Lager?

Since it's named "Vores Oel", I'd guess it's an ale.

Re:Coming from an ameteur brewer..

[dapyx]

Myself and several other home-brewers share recipies and techniques all the time.

That is "shared source", not "open source".

From an open source beer advocate

[Frankie70]

If this recipe were code, it wouldn't compile.


Don't whine. Just fix the bugs in the recipe & check
in the fix. That's what open source beer is all about.

Re:caffeine LIKE?

[ajs318]

The important thing is that guarana is better for you as it is a natural source of caffeine. so that's something to remember

And you are saying the coffee bean isn't also a natural source of caffeine?

Tobacco is natural. So is Belladonna. Just being natural does not mean something is good for you.

Re:Beta testing

[The Tyrant]

I dunno about that, get one measurement wrong or add in some new ingredient that looks good on paper but isnt and you'd have to drink something really quite foul.

Rebooting a computer is a pain, but shampooing the carpet is worse.

Freedom Needs To Proliferate In Other Products...

[FosterSJC]

"Creating a free beer sounds fun but frivolous - one may ask what meaning this really has concerning food, or other physical products. I believe it is quite the opposite; that is, that Vores Øl has given us the freedom to protect our ideas and promote innovation. Already many recipes, cooking methods, ingredients, even entire species of plants and animals are patented and copyrighted. Vores Øl aims to publicize the fact that there is an alternative to the monopolistic act of traditional copyright law - and a simple alternative at that. Share and share alike is the mantra here. So how about you share some of your beer with me?"

-I wrote this on my food blog last week about the Free beer. Too many real world physical things are becoming patented. Innovation is being stifled and aggressive capitalism is preventing creativity. I think the best part of this project is that it simply raises awareness of the fact that copyright, trademark, int. property law, etc. don't have to continue going the way they are going.

-Aaron

http://aliment.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

Use different words

[packrat0x]

We have two Latin words that explain the concept just fine.
Liberty: freedom (free as is speech).
Gratis: without charge or payment (free as in beer).

Re:The label...

[patio11]

In the real world, one of the selling points of OSS is that its free-as-in-beer. The whole "You get a software system to do what you mean for NO MONEY" thing is a major driver to adopter (particularly in my own workplace, where we're frequently advising third world governments which don't exactly have large technology budgets). Why would you want to tell people "Hah, the number one reason you want to use OSS is a mirage! Its too good to be true! Sucker! You can't actually download Linux off of the Internet and start using it for free!"

Germany

[Hrothgar The Great]

I just came back from sixteen days in Europe pretty recently (my first visit) and it's true - though the majority of places at which I drank beer kept it in refrigerators, their temperature was nowhere near as low as we keep them in the US. (This was nice when you go to butter your bread in the morning, incidentally). German beer tastes pretty good warm. You should give it a try sometime.

I get really sick of this crap that's posted around here though about how we only keep ours cold to kill the flavor. It's not true. As the wise man a few posts below me indicated, we just like cold beverages around here. (In Nebraska, it has been over 40 degrees Celsius for the past week if you need an idea of why that might be) Beer snobbery is HUGE on Slashdot, among both Americans and Europeans and pretty much everyone else here. Snobbery would really lose its effectiveness if you didn't have a great story you completely made up so that you could more verbosely look down on something, right?

I had by far the best beer I have ever had during those days in Germany and Belgium. (In fact, if anyone knows where I can get a bottle of Chimay for less than $6 I would love to know about it). When I got back to Nebraska, however, the first thing I wanted to drink was an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. There's nothing wrong with a little variety, and I'm just not quite enough of an elitist asshole to complain about a national tradition, I guess.