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It's important to note that Stallman considers the GPL a hack on the copyright system (a clever one, sure, but a hack nonetheless). He'd rather it not have to e
by dcow 3y ago
It's important to note that Stallman considers the GPL a hack on the copyright system (a clever one, sure, but a hack nonetheless). He'd rather it not have to exist, because we shouldn't need to exist in a world where companies can own the recipe to mix bytes around and achieve a certain software flavor.
I mean you can't copyright a food recipe. It so obviously would be stupid to have designer meals and chefs who are the only person that can cook a certain dish. The argument is that software isn't any different. And you can't copyright the fastest route from point A to B on a map. So why can you e.g. copyright the preferred method of sending bytes down an HDMI cable?
- indigochill 3y agoI'm sympathetic to that perspective, but that would entail pushing an ideal upstream to where change isn't going to happen because there's far too much financial interest in copyrighting arrangements of bytes. So if the system's unfixable, then hacking it seems like the right approach. Besides which, ignoring GPL, Creative Commons seems like a good license because creative works are more than logical arrangements of bytes (there are only so many useful ways of sending bytes down an HDMI cable, but many more ways to write a novel) and is probably the more appropriate license for social media content (at least assuming the author wants to apply that license to their content).