The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Yigal Chripun]

Mike Parker wrote:
>> no one disputes that the artist/software developer should be able to
>> earn a living.
> 
> But you want to take the choice of how they do so out of their hands.

Again, I do not take that choice. You claim that a software developer
has the right to decide to treat his software as a product and sell
"units" of it. I claim that such an option does not exist in the first
place. software is information, either you share it or you keep it to
yourself. beyond that there are copy-right laws that _give_ the author a
limited time-span of exclusivity. the software developer doesn't have a
right to exclusivity, he receives it from society for a limited time.
that time span should represent a balance between the fact the published
 work is public domain and the need to make it worthwhile for an
individual to publish his work. current us law is 70 years after the
death of that individual is out of balance entirely.
a more reasonable amount (for software) should be 10-15 years at most.
maybe even less.
>> what I'm trying to say here is that allowing free distribution of music
>> online makes it easier for a young new artist (or software developer) to
>>  achieve his goals (becoming a known artist). I claim that we'll find
>> our selves in a world where the independent creators, the garage bands
>> and bedroom software developers, have _NOT_ gone the way of the dodo but
>> rather flourish.
> 
> I don't dispute any of that (well, except the last bit about the future
> of indies). The opportunities opened up by the internet are tremendous,
> and I've taken advantage of them myself to some extent. But you've
> missed the point entirely. I'm not saying we should disallow free
> distribution. That's rather silly. My argument is that *it's the
> creator's choice to sell his product or distribute it freely.*

Again, this choice never existed but rather manufactured artificially by
a few groups of interest.

> 
> Just because you like free stuff doesn't mean I have to give my stuff
> away for free. Conversely, just because I like to sell my stuff doesn't
> mean you have to buy it. If we leave things at that, we're all happy
> campers. I'll sell my stuff to people who want to buy it and you can get
> your stuff from people who want to give it away for free. But when you
> start taking my stuff without paying for it, knowing that I'm selling it
> and don't want it given away freely, now you're stepping on my toes and
> infringing my rights.

You do not have to publish your work. you can keep it for yourself.
either you give to society or you don't. that's your choice.
> 
> I can see you are passionate about this, but it reminds me very much of
> the debate over the GPL. This isn't a direct analogy, but the
> circumstances are similar. GPL supporters love to go on about how
> software should be free (as in 'libre'). Ultimately, they wind up
> reducing freedom by dictating that the source of any derived work be
> released under the same terms. True freedom would give developers more
> choice, like the BSD or MIT licenses do. In your arguments, you keep
> going on about how grand it would be for us to have free (as in
> 'gratis', which is a different beast than 'libre' for sure) access to
> all of this stuff, but you would implicitly restrict the freedom (as in
> 'libre') of the people who produce it by dictating how they should
> distribute it.

I do not object to OSS that is sold for money (again with the Red hat
example). there is no conflict here with this at all.
another way to look at it is this:
an MP3 file is just information and should be available online, at the
same time there is nothing that prevents the musician to charge money
for his performance. a singer "produces" music by singing (for example).
he does not "produce" MP3 files.
Why don't you pay for each song you here on the radio for example?
when you go to a restaurant do you pay for the taste, the smell or the
food itself?

> 
> Speaking of the GPL, how do you feel about taking GPLed code and using
> it in closed-source, proprietary software that is then distributed to
> your customers freely or commercially (that is, ignoring the terms of
> the GPL altogether)? Is that just as acceptable to you as pirating the
> end product?

I feel that the GPL is a necessary evil. It's a hack on top of a broken
system. Ideally, there should be no need for it at all.
Currently the GPL is the exception to the rule. the default is
Closed-source. I'd want it to be the default while closed source would
be the exception.
to answer your question: yes it's wrong to subvert the GPL. The parallel
you're trying to draw here however is not acceptable to me. these are
two separate issues.