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Figure - a portable secure operating system
Revision: 10
Created: Michael FIG <michael@fig.org>, 2006-07-08
Modified: Michael FIG <michael@fig.org>, 2007-02-09

Copyright (C) 2006, 2007  Michael FIG
 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
 of this information, but changing it is not allowed.

This document is itself the Figure operating system.  Welcome.

Introduction
************

When most people think of a computer operating system, they have only
a vague understanding of what it is.  It's somehow necessary in order
to use a computer, but it's difficult to specifically define or
understand.  Here is my definition:

   An operating system is a set of laws for communication.

Most people also have only a vague notion of what security is.  Here,
again is my definition:

   Security is justice.

And so:

   A secure operating system is a set of laws for communication that
   preserve justice.

This means that entities governed by a secure operating system have no
fear about communicating.

Figure is an architecture for a secure operating system that can be
easily customized and installed on any combination of hardware,
software, and human beings.

Capabilities
************

The underlying theory behind Figure comes from an obscure field called
cybernetics, the study of communication and control.  My cybernetic
thesis is:

  There is no such thing as control, only communication.

Expanding on this thesis means that I fundamentally reject the idea of
"power," "force," or "coercion."  That doesn't mean that I think they
are bad ideas, just that they _don't exist_!

The most advanced, high performance, and secure computer operating
systems of today all understand this model and use it to their
advantage.  For them, every activity a computer experiences is just a
"message" that can be acted on, ignored, or taken into future
consideration.

But in such a model, how can we tell who is the right one to listen
to?  Well, we introduce _capabilities_.

  A capability represents a promise, freely given by the promiser,
  than another entity can count on you to deliver.  It is a contract,
  but it has the beautiful advantage of being copied and transferred
  without any central authority.

A capability-based operating system is secure by design.  The only way
to accomplish anything is to communicate via capabilities, and the
only messages that are acted on are the ones allowed by the
capability.  Even if your friend gives the capability to an enemy,
they can't do anything worse than if your friend had asked you to do
something at the enemy's request.

Capabilities cut out the middleman.  And with them, go most of what
people consider the basis for operating systems today... they're
giant, authoritarian middlemen.

Privacy
*******

In this thesis, there is utterly no reason to prevent people from
sharing information.  Information can never be "stolen", since even if
you "steal" my idea, I still have it.

  Everything in the universe, and all ideas, and all relationships are
  capabilities.

This has its roots in modern quantum theory.  When you have knowledge
of something, you can send it a message, but that's about all you can
do.  How it responds is its

  Voluntary choice

That's the toughest thing to explain to somebody who hasn't seen the
research.  I can make a reasonable case that the questions that have
baffled modern science simply suggest that every element of the
universe has its own consciousness and free will to choose its own
internal and external reaction to communication.

It cuts to the core of Figure's design.  Privacy is the only thing
that causes inefficiency and confusing features.  I believe that
information is _not_ power, since power doesn't exist.

To continue this thesis, perfect information with complete freedom of
choice of reaction for all parties can result in only two things:
understanding, then peace.

Failure
*******

So, with some experience in software design and my cybernetic thesis,
I set out to prove that it's true.  And the only way to do so is to
implement it, release it to the world, and see what happens.

I've tried for seven years to implement Figure as free software
running as part of another operating system on commodity personal
computers.  Each time I would get close to expressing the core ideas,
the limitations of the host operating system (inefficiency, kernel,
programming language, machine architecture, etc) made my work
impossible and made me have to try again from scratch on a new
platform.

Today, I realized I have been barking up the wrong tree.  Implementing
a computer operating system would do absolutely nothing to build
evidence for my thesis.  People just wouldn't care outside the
technocrats.

I didn't want understanding and peace between computer programs.  I
wanted understanding and peace between people.

Implementation
**************

And that's when a completely different thought struck me.  Human
governments are operating systems.  If I want to show that Figure's
architecture is sound, I need to form a government.

I'm not talking about revolution or isolation.  I'm talking about
using existing human laws to implement Figure's design, and inviting
people to live voluntarily within that design.  And it turns out that
in many country's laws, the government gives you power to do exactly
that, through contracts and licenses.

  Contracts inform the government that two parties voluntarily wish to
  adhere to stricter laws.  Licenses inform the government that you
  give permission for somebody else to bypass your property rights in
  certain ways.  The government enforces either on request, through
  the judicial system.

So, Figure took a new shape: as a contract which grants people the
right to enforce the use of capabilities, and as a license which
relinquishes control over the copying (and modification) of
information.

Patents
*******

But all this is just a different way of looking at things, it's
completely amoral and optional.  And so, here is the hook:

  I intend to patent the legal device of consensual capabilities,
  and grant use of that device only if both parties allow free copying
  and modification of all information gained in the course of the
  contract.  There would also be a commitment from the holder of the
  patent that they would never charge any other patent fee.

Such a patent would give privacy-free people a competitive advantage
over those who want to preserve privacy: the use of the capability
technology.  And that would give enough time to see if the abandonment
of privacy produces positive results.

Figure as a Contract
********************

Eventually, the fully-featured version will scale gracefully from
one-on-one relationships to small groups to larger organizations with
many overlapping member groups.

I hope that there are ways of leveraging existing governmental
structures to lower the income tax burden for people who adopt Figure.
For partnerships of two people this might be a interspousal agreement
for a legal marriage, and for more people it might be part of the
bylaws or employment agreement for a worker's cooperative.

The contract refers to the parties as Partners, and the relationship
as the Partnership.

Each capability is described in an addendum to the contract, which
contains the following items:

 a) The performing individual or group.
 b) Legal terminology for the rights the capability grants.
 c) The owning individual or group.

And optionally, by consensus of the performer and owner when the
capability is created:

 d) A schedule for automatic invocation of the capability.
 e) Conditions for automatic revocation of the capability.
 f) The amount of time the performer must give notice to the owner
 before the capability can be revoked unilaterally by the performer.
 g) The amount of time an owner must give notice to the Partners
 before the capability can be exchanged (see below).

The Master Capability names all the Partners as both the performing
group and the owning group, and grants the right to make any change to
the Terms or Capabilities.  All of its properties are set upon
creation of the contract.

Here is the outline of the Terms of the contract:

1. Self-determination.  Aside from the terms in this contract and
outside legal obligations, the Partners have no obligation to consult
with or ask one another permission for any action or decision.

2. Consensus.  Where a group is named as an owner or performer in a
Capability, consensus of all the members of the group are required to
exercise the appropriate rights.  When a group is named as an owner,
each member of the owning group has equal rights over any results of
exercising the Capability.  When a group is named as a performer in a
Capability, each member of the performing group is equally responsible
for performing the Capability, unless that responsibility is waived
through invoking another Capability.

3. Joining.  To join a capability as part of an owner group or
performer group, the new member must first consent to all the existing
terms on that capability, and if only the existing members of the
group (who are not withdrawing) mutually agree with the addition, the
new member is added.  If the new member is joining the Master
Capability, they must additionally sign the contract and thereby agree
to all the existing Capabilities and Terms.

4. Transferability.  Capabilities can be copied unilaterally by their
owner to another owner, so long as any revocation conditions are
adjusted to apply to the sum of the Capabilities.

5. Information.  Any copyrightable information created by one Partner
and voluntarily shared with any other of the Partners must be licensed
by the first Partner in such a way that it can be copied, modified (by
the first Partner providing the most directly modifiable form of the
information available to the first Partner), and redistributed by the
other Partner so long as they preserve the original Partner's
copyright, attribute any changes, and do not restrict the rights of
any other entity to do the same.  This includes, but is not limited to
artwork, blueprints, contracts, conversations, documentation, novels,
poetry, recipes, software, and songs.

6. Property rights.  The Partnership as a whole may, by consensus,
choose to adopt legal ownership of property, but the creation of new
Capabilities is the only way that these rights can be exercised.

7. Overloading.  It is the intention to honour Capabilities as
voluntary offers.  If there are any obligations determined by
government, other contracts, or courts to cause one Partner to owe
another Partner something that is covered by what is already granted
in the Capabilities, the performer may unilaterally elect to perform
only the greater value of:

  a) the overlapping Capability as assessed by an independent
  appraiser agreed upon by both parties, in which case the owner
  relinquishes any rights to the other legal obligation, or

  b) the payer's legal obligation to the payee, in which case the
  owner relinquishes any rights to the overlapping Capability.

8. Withdrawal.  If a Partner wishes to cease membership in a group
performing a Capability, they must do so with the consent of all the
other members of the group.  If an owner wants to relinquish ownership
of any capability, she can do so unilaterally, and optionally
requesting an exchange if allowed by the Capability.

For an exchange, the other Partners will legally transfer to the
withdrawing owner her share of the value of the Capability she holds
by (at the consensual option of the non-withdrawing Partners):

  a) paying the monetary value of their share, as determined by an
     independent appraiser agreed upon by the withdrawing Partner,

  b) proposing a division of the capability into subcapabilities (the
     same number as all the Partners, including the withdrawing
     Partner), and signing a separate contract between the withdrawing
     Partner and the performers granting equivalent access to that
     subcapability.

Upon withdrawal from the Master Capability, the withdrawing Partner
forfeits rights in any other Capability and is no longer party to the
contract.

9. Eviction.  If there are more than two owners in a group of any
capability, including the Master Capability, any owner can call a vote
to evict another owner from the owner group.  All owners participate
in the vote, including the owner who may be evicted.  If a simple
majority of those owners agree with the eviction (ties do not count as
agreement), then he involuntarily withdraws (as above).

10. Dissolution.  Consensual dissolution of the Partnership can be
accomplished by using the terms of Withdrawal as a guideline,
considering every Partner to be both withdrawing and non-withdrawing
and making all decisions consensually.


The FIG License
***************

Everybody produces information that is covered by international
copyright laws, and if you don't declare otherwise, under those laws
you're restricting it as much as is possible (all rights reserved).
On the other hand, if you put information in the public domain,
somebody else can make a trivial change to it, and then be able to
claim all rights reserved on the derivative work, removing it from
your own use!

Protect the ideas that come through you, and set them free!  Consider
copyleft instead of putting your work in the public domain or
copyrighting it.  Copyleft asserts full copyright on the information,
then provides a license that carefully grants people rights that
foster their creativity.

The most popular copyleft (the GNU General Public License) was
invented for software, which is probably the most complicated kind of
copyrightable material, and it does a lot to protect and promote the
growth of the ideas.

The following outlined license terms are the beginning of a new breed
of copyleft (the FIG License) that addresses what I see as the only
design flaw in the GNU General Public License: the corporate
distributor of the freed information ends up with all the profit.

Royalties are not immoral, they're just taxing the wrong people (the
consumer, not the distributor).

Here is a brief outline of the proposed terms, where ``this
information'' refers to the information speculatively covered by the
FIG License, not this document itself:

1. You are permitted to make a modified version of this information,
so long as *before* you distribute it (see below) you must clearly
document how your modified version is different from what you
received.

2. You are permitted to redistribute this information and any modified
versions so long as you make it clear to the consumer what their
rights are under this license.  If you redistribute a transformation
of this information which is less easily modified or less
comprehensible than the original or modified version, you are obliged
to provide the original and modified information at no additional
cost.

3. If there is no paragraph beginning with "Freedom is priceless.",
you can add one.  This feature will result in terms that are
compatible with the GNU General Public License.

4. If nobody has added a "Freedom is priceless." paragraph, and if you
can assert copyright on the modified version, and you're interested in
profiting from or preventing paid redistribution, you may add the
following paragraph if it doesn't exist, then add your name and
contact information to the bottom of the list.

  Freedom has a price.  If you will directly or indirectly profit from
  distributing this information or its derivatives (even for raw media
  costs, labour costs, or barter), you must *in advance* negotiate
  distribution licenses with the following of the copyright holders:

5. You are permitted to redistribute this information and any modified
versions so long as you make it clear to the consumer what their
rights are under this license.  If you redistribute a transformation
of this information which loses any of its useful properties (such as
modifiability or comprehensability), you are obliged to provide the
more useful version at no additional cost.

Conclusion
**********

Regardless of whether the device can be patented or the contract is
enforcable, Figure will have succeeded if it helps more people think
about the nature of communication.
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