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I think this is a mis-representation of Stallman's point. Notice that Stallman has his non-code media mostly under a no-derivatives creative commons license.
by abetusk 10y ago
I think this is a mis-representation of Stallman's point. Notice that Stallman has his non-code media mostly under a no-derivatives creative commons license.
From what I understand, Stallman is concerned about making sure our infrastructure is free (as in freedom). The simplicity of copying is almost a tangential issue. His point is that for a society to be considered free (democratic, empowered, etc.) the people need access in a meaningful way to the infrastructure that helps create that society. To me, his point is a natural extension of forcing government documents to be under public domain and providing architectural blueprints for public scrutiny.
Maybe I'm wrong and mis-interpreting Stallman's point. Do you have a reference that would support your claimed stance on Stallman's 'ease of copying = moral justification against copyright' interpretation?
- zanny 10y agoNo, Stallman is a copyright supporter. He just sees it as a tool to empower users. And from his perspective, it makes some sense. If everything were IP liberated, there would be no compulsion to release source code, but my optimism makes me hope that if you cannot profit off software sales, you have no reason not to also disclose the source. If you can only make money off people paying you to write the software, having the broadest audience becomes crucial, and in such a world (much in the same way most developer tools work outside the MS ecosystem) not being free software would mean nobody would fathom using your software.
- dnautics 10y agoI have had an extensive 10+ email personal correspondence with Stillman about patents. Tl;dr He's very much for patents that aren't software patents.