4 ms·

Absolutely, make GPL illegal.

kube-system 5y ago
This is probably the most obvious example of why this would be much more radical of a change than some people would expect at face value. Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright. Corporate interests will restrict their code (and everyone else's) with NDAs instead, and they'll only distribute binaries like it's 1990 again, but worse.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  > Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright. Copyleft (probably?) can't exist without government enforcement. In principle it could be direct rather than by way of copyright.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It would never work. To do it directly, you'd have to contract with the other party. Those who don't want to contribute would no longer be compelled to do so, they can simply not accept the contract.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      You can have state-enforced copyleft without general copyright.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Then you aren’t arguing for eliminating copyright, you’re arguing for restrictions on copyright. If an author has no right to control the use of their work, they have no right to control the use of their work.
        anoncake 5y ago
        > general
        dllthomas 5y ago
        I don't think a system where copying is always permissible under particular copyleft terms, where creators can neither restrict that copying nor grant further/other license, is appropriately referred to as a system of "copyright" - no one possesses a unique right to control copying. Note that I'm not speaking to the advisability of such a system, just pointing out that there's not actually a theoretical dependency as I would use the terms. If we're being loose enough with the term "copyright" that it applies to any possible limitation of copying, then of course copyleft depends on it because we've just defined it to include copyleft - that is not interesting.
- breck 5y ago
  > Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright A miracle cancer cure literally can't exist without cancer. Exactly! That's the point. Copyleft is a temporary treatment for the cancer of copyright. When we get rid of the tumors, we don't need (or want it) anymore. The free market can solve the NDA problem. Our tax dollars should be used for more important problems than deciding whether adults are keeping secrets between each other.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    > The free market can solve the NDA problem. Under what mechanism? The free market didn’t share code with the world pre-GPL and other copyleft licenses. What reason would they have to continue to comply? Large companies are not contributing to copyleft projects for fun, altruism, or profit. They’re doing it because the software is good and they legally must contribute in order to extract profit from it. If you take away that obligation, they’re not going to instruct their employees to waste company time making a pull request that is no longer legally required. They’ll have their 9-to-5 engineers push fixes to their own proprietary forks which you’ll have to pay for, and hobbyist forks will be stuck with whatever hobbyists fix in their spare time.
    - breck 5y ago
      In a world without copyright employees can leave at will and continue to use all the code they wrote.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Not if they sign NDAs, which is exactly what many companies require employees to do now, and what even more will do if copyright doesn’t exist.
        breck 5y ago
        The government should not be in the business of policing NDAs. NDAs will go the same way as non competes in California.

This is probably the most obvious example of why this would be much more radical of a change than some people would expect at face value. Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright. Corporate interests will restrict their code (and everyone else's) with NDAs instead, and they'll only distribute binaries like it's 1990 again, but worse.

dllthomas 5y ago
> Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright. Copyleft (probably?) can't exist without government enforcement. In principle it could be direct rather than by way of copyright.
- kube-system 5y ago
  It would never work. To do it directly, you'd have to contract with the other party. Those who don't want to contribute would no longer be compelled to do so, they can simply not accept the contract.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    You can have state-enforced copyleft without general copyright.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Then you aren’t arguing for eliminating copyright, you’re arguing for restrictions on copyright. If an author has no right to control the use of their work, they have no right to control the use of their work.
      - anoncake 5y ago
        > general
      - dllthomas 5y ago
        I don't think a system where copying is always permissible under particular copyleft terms, where creators can neither restrict that copying nor grant further/other license, is appropriately referred to as a system of "copyright" - no one possesses a unique right to control copying. Note that I'm not speaking to the advisability of such a system, just pointing out that there's not actually a theoretical dependency as I would use the terms. If we're being loose enough with the term "copyright" that it applies to any possible limitation of copying, then of course copyleft depends on it because we've just defined it to include copyleft - that is not interesting.
breck 5y ago
> Copyleft literally can't exist without copyright A miracle cancer cure literally can't exist without cancer. Exactly! That's the point. Copyleft is a temporary treatment for the cancer of copyright. When we get rid of the tumors, we don't need (or want it) anymore. The free market can solve the NDA problem. Our tax dollars should be used for more important problems than deciding whether adults are keeping secrets between each other.
- kube-system 5y ago
  > The free market can solve the NDA problem. Under what mechanism? The free market didn’t share code with the world pre-GPL and other copyleft licenses. What reason would they have to continue to comply? Large companies are not contributing to copyleft projects for fun, altruism, or profit. They’re doing it because the software is good and they legally must contribute in order to extract profit from it. If you take away that obligation, they’re not going to instruct their employees to waste company time making a pull request that is no longer legally required. They’ll have their 9-to-5 engineers push fixes to their own proprietary forks which you’ll have to pay for, and hobbyist forks will be stuck with whatever hobbyists fix in their spare time.
  - breck 5y ago
    In a world without copyright employees can leave at will and continue to use all the code they wrote.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Not if they sign NDAs, which is exactly what many companies require employees to do now, and what even more will do if copyright doesn’t exist.
      - breck 5y ago
        The government should not be in the business of policing NDAs. NDAs will go the same way as non competes in California.