The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Mike Parker]

Yigal Chripun wrote:
> Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 04:12:37AM +0100, Jb wrote:
>>> No-one is trying 
>>> to erase certain ideas / artistic works from history. We are in fact trying 
>>> to do the exact oposite. We are trying to create an enviroment where ideas 
>>> and artist works flourish.
>> Then why is this debate about rights? Rights are irrelevant - what
>> matters is the results.
>>
>> If your goal is to create an environment where ideas and art flourish,
>> great. That's a good goal, and that is where your defence should be
>> focused.
>>
>> Forget all this repetitive talk about rights, and talk about how the
>> law helps or doesn't help achieve this goal (or whatever other goal you
>> want to set).
>>
>> Copyright law might be a valid way to achieve this goal. It might not
>> be. There might be completely better ways (something I'm convinced of).
>>
>>
>> Setting a real world goal for the debate lets both sides create an
>> objective test case for their arguments, which would let it finally come
>> to an adequate conclusion.
>>
> 
> I agree with you.
> if we talk about results: allowing free redistribution of information
> allows young aspiring artists to go straight to the public and spread
> the word about their art.

This has been mentioned before, but there's a difference between liberty 
and gratuity. It's unfortunate that we use the one word, freedom, to 
represent both in English.

> this also works for software developers with the same model. You do not
> need to convince someone with lots of money to invest in you in order to
> create your software. you do not need to start your own company.
> Many OSS developers done just that.
> i.e Linus published his kernel online, it got successful and now he's
> being paid to develop his pet project. same goes for the core developers
> of all OSS. the problem is greed. people think they can go write a
> text-editor, patent the sh*t out of it and become billionaires. also on
> the way screwing anyone else that also wanted to produce a text editor.
> so yes, with OSS you won't become the next bill gates with your
> software, but, we'll have more diversity of software and more people
> could make a descent living by being software developers.
> 
> besides, why does it make sense that we should have a small bunch of
> people controlling all software and getting all the benefits?

You're taking this argument well beyond the boundaries and entering the 
territory of ideology. No one denies that Linus was free to distribute 
Linux without charge. No one in these discussions here have advocated 
that people be prevented from doing so. And I've yet to see anyone lend 
support to the idea that all software should be controlled by a few people.

What people here have argued is that Linus had the /choice/ to release 
Linux freely. That's freedom (liberty). It was *his* choice. Not yours, 
not mine. He could just as easily have chosen to charge you an arm and a 
leg for it. We can all be happy that he didn't. But if you allow anyone 
and everyone to freely (gratis) distribute the work of others without 
permission, you are then impugning the freedom (liberty) of the 
creators. Is that what you really want?