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Free Software can't exist without copyright. Free Software is all about forcing people who re-sell your code to make their code available to their customers, an
by mort96 4y ago
Free Software can't exist without copyright. Free Software is all about forcing people who re-sell your code to make their code available to their customers, and copyright is the legal mechanism by which that is done.
Open Source software can exist in a world without copyright; that's basically what permissive licenses are. Proprietary software can exist in a world without copyright; just don't release the source code, only distribute build artifacts. But free software is dead without copyright.
- bitofhope 4y agoFree Software vs Open Source is not about copyleft vs permissive. The GPL is both a Free and an Open Source license. The MIT license also counts as both Free and Open Source. Most permissive licenses — and most popular permissive licenses — include a copyright statement and conditions which would not be enforceable without copyright. They usually require redistribution of the original copyright notice and license text to be distributed along with copies or derivatives of the work.
- Timwi 4y ago> copyright is the legal mechanism by which that is done. That doesn't mean there can't be other legal mechanisms that would also accomplish software freedom. Closed-source software should just be illegal. Then you don't need copyright to ensure freedom. With copyright gone, you are now guaranteed free to reuse any code. The law should not prohibit copying, it should only require attribution (i.e., prohibit plagiarism).