5 ms·
My least favorite part of the arguments was when the US government representative used the existence of open source licenses that explicitly allow copying decla
by penteract 6y ago
My least favorite part of the arguments was when the US government representative used the existence of open source licenses that explicitly allow copying declarations to claim that it's not commonly believed that such rights don't exist.
"There is a prevalent practice of licensed copying of declarations and often that is done through what is called open-source licensing"
...(6 minutes later)
"sometimes, often the license terms don't include the payment of money, they simply include a requirement like whatever improvements you make have to be given back to the programming community. Have to be made known to other potential programmers. But the copyright holders authority to impose and enforce those licenses obviously depends on the proposition that the code is copyrightable to begin with. And so those licenses would be a pointless gesture otherwise and the very fact that they are offered with such frequency tends to dispel the idea that there is a common understanding in the relevant community that this material is not copyrightable at all."
- VWWHFSfQ 6y agoit's a good point though
- penteract 6y agoI agree that part of the reason open source software is so popular (particularly for programming language implementations) is so that there is no ambiguity about the fact that people can make adaptations/alternatives without worrying about copyright lawsuits. However it seems very perverse to use the fact that so many people think it would be a bad idea if these interfaces were constrained by intellectual property laws to justify constraining them by intellectual property laws.
- mLuby 6y ago> licenses would be a pointless gesture otherwise and the very fact that they are offered with such frequency tends to dispel the idea that there is a common understanding This reasoning would also make valid those silly "I hereby declare that my photos on Facebook are my property, with all rights reserved etc etc" posts.
- tylersmith 6y agoHe's right. The entire premise of open source licensing is that the work is copyrightable, so it uses the copyright system to enforce the authors distribution requirements.
- penteract 6y agoIt still seems like an overstatement to argue that use of open source licenses indicates a belief that method declarations are copyrightable.
- nitrogen 6y agoOpen source licenses have often included terms that were for other jurisdictions, or because the status of something is actually unknown, or just in case some future law changed the accepted belief.
- carapace 6y agoI don't have to believe in Santa Claus to appreciate Christmas presents. I don't believe that software should be subject to copyright so I put the GPL on my code to protect it from those that do. Fight fire with fire, eh?
- TheFlyingFish 6y agoThe GPL, in particular, goes further than just refusing to exercise your copyright over a piece of software. The GPL restricts the usage of your software, most notably by forbidding its use as part of any proprietary software. Without copyright no one would have to respect that restriction. The situation you are describing is closer to a project with an "unlicense," e.g. SQLite, which explicitly makes the project public-domain and places no restrictions whatsoever on its use.
- m463 6y agoYes, the GPL actually depends on strong copyright. who knows, maybe strong APIs will prevent embrace/extend/extinguish?