4 ms·

Are you arguing that the GPL and its goals are immoral?

by simiones 4y ago

teddyh 4y ago
GPL is, according to its creators, a tool for undermining copyright.
- simiones 4y ago
  It is not. Or, to be more precise, it is a way of working within the copyright system to uphold the 4 freedoms that they consider most important. But, importantly, abolishing software copyright would not give users the 4 freedoms. Instead, the goal of the Free Software movement would be to enshrine the 4 freedoms into law - for example, making it illegal to distribute software without making the source available, and to make it illegal to distribute hardware devices whose software can't be changed by the end user. Having copyright + the GPL is more useful than no copyright at all.
ben-schaaf 4y ago
From my understanding the GPL was created as a hack on copyright law in order to prevent abuses. Without copyright laws the GPL wouldn't have been needed in the first place. See https://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/ https://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/
- simiones 4y ago
  > Without copyright laws the GPL wouldn't have been needed in the first place. That's an inaccurate understanding, and is not supported by that history page, or by more recent actions from the FSF and Richard Stallman. Without copyright, there would be no copyleft - which would mean that companies would be entirely free to take any libre software, package it with their own user-hostile changes, and bundle it in an obfuscated binary. They would also be free to do what TiVo did, and add hardware constraints to prevent you from running modified versions of "their" software, even if "their" software is GNU utilities. The framework of copyright is actually quite important for the free software movement to be able to enforce its goals and try to force companies to contribute to free software.
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    Indeed the GPL is stronger due to copyright than if neither existed, but without it you'd still be within your rights to redistribute and modify the binary. Because of the ineffectiveness of obfuscation I don't see how businesses would have an incentive to keep source code private anymore.

Are you arguing that the GPL and its goals are immoral?

teddyh 4y ago

GPL is, according to its creators, a tool for undermining copyright.

simiones 4y ago
It is not. Or, to be more precise, it is a way of working within the copyright system to uphold the 4 freedoms that they consider most important. But, importantly, abolishing software copyright would not give users the 4 freedoms. Instead, the goal of the Free Software movement would be to enshrine the 4 freedoms into law - for example, making it illegal to distribute software without making the source available, and to make it illegal to distribute hardware devices whose software can't be changed by the end user. Having copyright + the GPL is more useful than no copyright at all.

ben-schaaf 4y ago

From my understanding the GPL was created as a hack on copyright law in order to prevent abuses. Without copyright laws the GPL wouldn't have been needed in the first place. See https://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/ https://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/

simiones 4y ago
> Without copyright laws the GPL wouldn't have been needed in the first place. That's an inaccurate understanding, and is not supported by that history page, or by more recent actions from the FSF and Richard Stallman. Without copyright, there would be no copyleft - which would mean that companies would be entirely free to take any libre software, package it with their own user-hostile changes, and bundle it in an obfuscated binary. They would also be free to do what TiVo did, and add hardware constraints to prevent you from running modified versions of "their" software, even if "their" software is GNU utilities. The framework of copyright is actually quite important for the free software movement to be able to enforce its goals and try to force companies to contribute to free software.
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  Indeed the GPL is stronger due to copyright than if neither existed, but without it you'd still be within your rights to redistribute and modify the binary. Because of the ineffectiveness of obfuscation I don't see how businesses would have an incentive to keep source code private anymore.