The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

Mike Parker aldacron at gmail.com
Sun Aug 17 08:25:19 PDT 2008


Yigal Chripun wrote:
> 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. 

Someone else already pointed out to you in this thread your confusion 
over the difference between 'freely available' and 'free of charge'. 
When an entity, like a government, tells you what kind of information 
you can and cannot have access to, that information is no longer freely 
available. If I'm the only person in the world who knows something, I 
might just want to make a tidy profit off of telling it to someone else. 
Nothing whatsoever gives you the right (or, at least at present, the 
ability) to pick it from my brain -- it's available for a price. I might 
even choose to tell it freely, being the good citizen I am. But it's 
/my/ choice.

Commercial software (which I still say isn't information) *is* freely 
available. If it weren't, you wouldn't be able to buy it because no one 
would be allowed to sell it.

> 
>> 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.

They very much are the same thing. When you take GPLed source, compile 
it into an executable, and distribute it without adhering to the terms 
of the GPL you are violating the conditions set forth by the copyright 
holders. A recent court decision[1], applying specifically to the 
Artistic License (but which will likely apply to other OSS licenses), 
clearly defines violation of such a license as copyright infringement. 
Both scenarios involve distribution of copyrighted material in a manner 
not permitted by the copyright holders.

I've always been perplexed by how some software developers can be so 
adamant at adhering to OSS licenses while being so cavalier about 
pirating software. It's such a counterintuitive thing. Once upon a time, 
I would have simply argued that your opposition to subverting the GPL 
while in support of subverting copyright law is illogical. Now I can add 
that it's contradicted by the courts.

[1] http://lessig.org/blog/2008/08/huge_and_important_news_free_l.html



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