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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en....

by krupan 10y ago

rayiner 10y ago
The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain. Without copyright, arguably copyleft would be unnecessary, since the whole purpose of copyleft is to prevent non-Free code from being built on Free code, and without copyright, everything would be Free. (OTOH, given the GPLv3, maybe that's not correct in the FSFs view, since the GPLv3 implies that "Free" has a broader and industry-dependent definition that merely eliminating copyright-based limitations wouldn't satisfy, so maybe the FSF does need to be copyright maximalists to advance their idea of Freedom-compelled-by-copyleft-license.)
  - krupan 10y ago
    GPLv3 mainly added new clauses to deal with other "intellectual property" laws that people started using to "protect" their source code such as patents, TIVO-ization tricks, and DRM. GPLv2 was written back when copyright was the only thing people were using to prevent sharing of their code.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > without copyright, everything would be Free Or no commercial entity would publish source.
    - pwdisswordfish 10y ago
      But there would be no basis for outlawing reverse engineering either.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        Reverse engineering isn't outlawed.
- devishard 10y ago
  > The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. I'm not sure you're knowledgeable enough on the subject to make that claim. > You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain. Copyleft wouldn't be necessary if everything were in the public domain.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > Copyleft wouldn't be necessary if everything were in the public domain. If everything were in the public domain, nothing would stop you from forking an open-source project and distributing only binaries of your modifications. The precise difference between the GPL and say the MIT/BSD licenses is that the GPL precludes that. Copyright is the only hook you can use to compel creators of derivative works to distribute user-readable source.
    - devishard 10y ago
      That's true, but for sufficiently large organizations, it would only be a matter of time before the code associated with the binaries was leaked, and without copyright, you would simply be able to use that leaked code. Under MIT/BSD you can't, for example, use and distribute the changes to the Mac OS source code which were made after they forked from BSD. There's still a bit of difference between GPL and just having everything public domain, I agree, but the difference isn't nearly as important as you're thinking it is.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en....

by krupan 10y ago

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en....

rayiner 10y ago

The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain. Without copyright, arguably copyleft would be unnecessary, since the whole purpose of copyleft is to prevent non-Free code from being built on Free code, and without copyright, everything would be Free. (OTOH, given the GPLv3, maybe that's not correct in the FSFs view, since the GPLv3 implies that "Free" has a broader and industry-dependent definition that merely eliminating copyright-based limitations wouldn't satisfy, so maybe the FSF does need to be copyright maximalists to advance their idea of Freedom-compelled-by-copyleft-license.)
- krupan 10y ago
  GPLv3 mainly added new clauses to deal with other "intellectual property" laws that people started using to "protect" their source code such as patents, TIVO-ization tricks, and DRM. GPLv2 was written back when copyright was the only thing people were using to prevent sharing of their code.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > without copyright, everything would be Free Or no commercial entity would publish source.
  - pwdisswordfish 10y ago
    But there would be no basis for outlawing reverse engineering either.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Reverse engineering isn't outlawed.
devishard 10y ago
> The FSF is not opposed to copyright as a concept. I'm not sure you're knowledgeable enough on the subject to make that claim. > You can argue over duration, but copyleft would not be possible if everything were in the public domain. Copyleft wouldn't be necessary if everything were in the public domain.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Copyleft wouldn't be necessary if everything were in the public domain. If everything were in the public domain, nothing would stop you from forking an open-source project and distributing only binaries of your modifications. The precise difference between the GPL and say the MIT/BSD licenses is that the GPL precludes that. Copyright is the only hook you can use to compel creators of derivative works to distribute user-readable source.
  - devishard 10y ago
    That's true, but for sufficiently large organizations, it would only be a matter of time before the code associated with the binaries was leaked, and without copyright, you would simply be able to use that leaked code. Under MIT/BSD you can't, for example, use and distribute the changes to the Mac OS source code which were made after they forked from BSD. There's still a bit of difference between GPL and just having everything public domain, I agree, but the difference isn't nearly as important as you're thinking it is.