[linux-audio-user] Re: Free Software vs. Open Source: Where do *you* stand?

Rob lau at kudla.org
Tue Feb 21 16:14:54 EST 2006


On Tue February 21 2006 15:08, Peter Bessman wrote:
> The fact that it's illegal to sell your vote does not prove
> that contracts can be morally wrong.

Not that the 'shrink-wrap licenses' to which Fons was referring 
are even accepted as contracts in many venues.  I certainly 
never had a contract with, say, Syntrillian in the bad old days 
when I would download a pirated copy of Cool Edit Pro; the text 
of whatever EULA they used was never even included with the 
illicit version.  The GPL itself is also not a contract; it's a 
license without which you can't distribute the program except by 
violating copyright.

The respect argument is specious as well; I certainly don't 
respect Wal-Mart when I'm buying a new toothbrush or whatever.  
(And since I've paid for it, I'm perfectly within my rights to 
share that toothbrush with anyone, though I'd probably rather 
not.)

So we're back to copyright violation, not breach of contract.  
And I stand by my original statement.  I kinda like copyright 
now that there's enough software covered under the GPL to make 
it inconvenient for the people who fought so hard to extend 
copyright to cover computer software in the first place. 

Nonetheless, those who have attempted to use copyright to turn 
imaginary property (based on infinite reproducibility) into real 
property (based on scarcity) are wrong, no matter how much it 
might benefit them to do so.  One million copies of notepad.exe 
have the exact same value in the real world as a single copy, 
regardless of how much sweat some peon in Redmond shed during 
its initial development.  And that goes for emacs, Finder, Doom 
3, Donkey Kong, In A Silent Way, Oliver Twist, Citizen Kane and 
the Mona Lisa too.

I don't want to hear the "but no one can make any money unless we 
treat copies like physical objects" line anymore either.  If I 
went into business selling a new kind of wrenches, with a 
shrink-wrap agreement on the outside requiring that they were 
only to be used by the purchaser, and then went broke because 
people started sharing their wrenches left and right despite my 
legal threats, I would deserve to be broke for pursuing such an 
unrealistic business plan.  See also: CueCat.  

Rob



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