13 Jan
2013
13 Jan
'13
3:45 p.m.
On Sunday 13 January 2013 10:17:23 Paul Davis wrote:
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:07 AM, drew Roberts
<zotz(a)100jamz.com> wrote:
without copyright laws (and patent laws) there would be no "intellectual
property" with respect to software so it would not be a BSD-license style
situation as there would be no opportunity for forkers etc. to take a program
to the All Rights Reserved realm as that realm would not exist.
On Sunday 13 January 2013 08:33:39 Paul Davis
wrote:
in
without copyright laws to allow an "intellectual property" owner to dictate
what the terms of using their creations are, the GPL would have no meaning,
because nothing could require reciprocal "openness". it would basically be
a BSD-license style situation. On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:13 AM, Dan MacDonald
<allcoms(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
If you
happen not to like it and you are pro copyrights and non-free
software then [... ]
just to nitpick ... "pro-copyrights" makes no sense. The GPL is founded and on copyright law. Without copyrights, the GPL
would be
unenforceable, and arguably meaningless.
Hardly. The belief is that software should not be subject to copyright.
GPL is
the legal judo to try to get to that state where the law has not changed.
The only thing lost were software to be made not subject to copyright
would be
the ability to require source code. I think I recall RMS writing to the
effect that without copyright, the benefit of hiding source would go away
for
most? software.
copyright law is what requires someone using copylefted software to obey
the terms of GPL. no copyright law - no enforcement.
Right but then also no enforcement for those trying to prevent the freeware
style dealings of others with respect to their precious binaries.
now, if you wish to be suitably idealist, you could suggest that we really
want copyright law to be replaced by copyleft, with similar powers of
enforcement. RMS did acknowledge early on that although this might be the
best possible arrangement (at least vis-a-vis software), that it was not
likely to happen in any foreseeable time.
This bit is true. But without the corresponding ability to enforce
non-distribution of binaries how big of an issue would this be?
all the best,
drew
(The above really only holds where software is
also not subject to patent
protection as well I think.)
In essence it depends on copyright to undo copyright effects. Without
copyright law, copyright law would have no negative effects to undo.
there would also be no way to require anyone to honor my intentions that my
source code be made available to anyone that my software is distributed to.