The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Jesse Phillips]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:41:06 +0300, 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. 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.

At this point I merely wish for you to define what information is to you. 
Information can refer to a number of things, but only one of them will 
you get me close to agreeing should be free of charge once released to 
the public and that is, "Knowledge about a topic." and any combination of 
bits does not fall into this.