Louigi Verona <louigi.verona(a)gmail.com> writes:
Hermann,
I actually disagree with that. And what I disagree with is this:
"At least, any knowledge or development"
There is a profound difference between knowledge and development. It would
indeed be immoral in the longer term to not share knowledge. But this is
not what's happening. Anyone who wants to write their own Skype is free to
do that based on industry-level expert knowledge out there, which is not
secret at all. Although there are, of course, proprietary algorithms,
frequently a lot of them are published or are in many ways irrelevant.
Proprietary algorithm doesn't mean good or efficient, it just means you
cannot see how its implemented.
You are confusing "closed" and "proprietary". Patented algorithms
are
proprietary but open. To be subject to copyright, something must be
published in the first place. Closed source is covered by trade
secrets, not copyright. It's the distributed binaries which are covered
by copyright.
In fact, I find this feeling of entitlement to other
people's work on
the part of many ideologically charged FLOSS community members quite
indecent. If I am writing a program, I don't see how anyone is
entitled to my work.
Nobody is entitled to your work. On the other hand the question is why
you are entitled to a state-controlled monopoly over any followup work
in excess of 70 years beyond your death.
The copyright act spells out that you are granted a time-limited
monopoly over the proceeds of your work in order promote science and the
arts. This is not a natural right but a social contract. However, 70
years beyond your death clearly shifts the main benefit of your work out
of your own hands. This is also not "time-limited" since any
mathematician will tell you a "limit" does not grow but is fixed in
relation to other variables. Furthermore, posthumous extensions of
copyright clearly rob you of your impact on future generations without
giving you anything in return. They are a violation of the terms that
you agreed to let a publisher handle your copyright under.
And when we compare commercial programs with FLOSS
programs, it is not
infrequent to see a dramatic difference in quality.
When we compare Shakespeare's works with daily sitcoms, it is not
infrequent to see a dramatic difference in quality, either. In spite of
the latter having 95 years of copyright after the authors' death.
--
David Kastrup