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I don't believe the proprietary model is fundamentally capitalist. Copyright is a monopoly that depends on law to manipulate people into giving up ownership. Ev

I don't believe the proprietary model is fundamentally capitalist. Copyright is a monopoly that depends on law to manipulate people into giving up ownership. Even if your analogy did hold up, everyone already DOES own their own computers. Proprietary licensed software tries to convince you to co-opt that ownership, by giving up some control of your computer. Your mistake is in assuming that by default, control of your computer does not belong to you. It does, but you give it up when you fall for the proprietary trap. The reason why copyleft is set up the way it is is because it's an attempt to prevent anyone from using the code in question to take advantage of copyright in that manner. I get the analogy but I don't think it draws a reasonable comparison because it confuses the software with the license. The confusion is understandable because proprietary companies deliberately spread it. They want to blur the line between software and license so people have a harder time understanding their politics. But like you said, the software is not the product, the license is the product. Proprietary licenses aren't about restricting someone's ability to sell licenses, it's about keeping you from using their sales pitch. Copyleft is about making sure that no one can stifle anyone else's ability to use a certain sales pitch.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
The structure of pure capitalism means the majority of people do not have a great deal of control. It's in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and so the people with capital are the people with control. If you have capital, you are a proprietor, and if you ship software for a living it's likely to be proprietary. Hence my initial association of capitalism and proprietary software with VCs. I'm not assuming I don't control my computer (it's mine to burn), I'm assuming I don't control the specific binaries on my computer unless I have the source code to them.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  Anyone with capital has SOME level of control, the point of capitalism is it allows the distribution of power to fluctuate. Compare to proprietary licensing where the developer has near complete control and the users have nothing and will likely never have anything. The software isn't the capital, the license is the capital. Of course you don't control the software when you deliberately pay for a license that literally says you don't control the software.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Yeah, it's more of an absolute split with proprietary software, except where vendors respond directly to customer needs and thus grant them indirect control. But, the amount of capital required to produce a binary of OS X or Windows is beyond anything you or I or the vast majority of users will obtain in the forseeable future, compared to a Debian binary which we could do today.
    - spacelizard 13y ago
      I'm not sure what it is you're trying to say. I can produce a binary of OS X or Windows right now by ripping the iso and then hitting ctrl-C and crtl-V, but their license makes it illegal for me to hack it or to redistribute it. Are you talking about the cost to pay them for a source license? It's true that if they even sell one at all the cost is going to be astronomical. This isn't a real cost or an issue of ownership, it's a protectionist monopoly.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        Yes, for a (full, four freedoms) source license. I'm equating being able to compile source code into binaries with owning the means of production, where "owning" means "controlling" (which is what it usually means anyway).
        spacelizard 13y ago
        I don't think that is a reasonable distinction. Anyone who has a copy to the source code can pretty easily compile it. The "means of production" in the analogy you're drawing is the compiler, and the source code is the instructions on how to operate the compiler. The big social problem that people are trying to tackle isn't access to compilers, it's access to those instructions. We've gotten to the point where most programs are written in common languages, and most common languages have free (as in freedom) compilers, interpreters, runtimes, etc. It's true that some people have definitely tried to write programs in their own languages with their own secret compilers just to make things even more difficult for potential copyright infringers, but thankfully that practice is not common because it has way more drawbacks than it does advantages.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

The structure of pure capitalism means the majority of people do not have a great deal of control. It's in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and so the people with capital are the people with control. If you have capital, you are a proprietor, and if you ship software for a living it's likely to be proprietary. Hence my initial association of capitalism and proprietary software with VCs. I'm not assuming I don't control my computer (it's mine to burn), I'm assuming I don't control the specific binaries on my computer unless I have the source code to them.

spacelizard 13y ago
Anyone with capital has SOME level of control, the point of capitalism is it allows the distribution of power to fluctuate. Compare to proprietary licensing where the developer has near complete control and the users have nothing and will likely never have anything. The software isn't the capital, the license is the capital. Of course you don't control the software when you deliberately pay for a license that literally says you don't control the software.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Yeah, it's more of an absolute split with proprietary software, except where vendors respond directly to customer needs and thus grant them indirect control. But, the amount of capital required to produce a binary of OS X or Windows is beyond anything you or I or the vast majority of users will obtain in the forseeable future, compared to a Debian binary which we could do today.
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    I'm not sure what it is you're trying to say. I can produce a binary of OS X or Windows right now by ripping the iso and then hitting ctrl-C and crtl-V, but their license makes it illegal for me to hack it or to redistribute it. Are you talking about the cost to pay them for a source license? It's true that if they even sell one at all the cost is going to be astronomical. This isn't a real cost or an issue of ownership, it's a protectionist monopoly.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Yes, for a (full, four freedoms) source license. I'm equating being able to compile source code into binaries with owning the means of production, where "owning" means "controlling" (which is what it usually means anyway).
      - spacelizard 13y ago
        I don't think that is a reasonable distinction. Anyone who has a copy to the source code can pretty easily compile it. The "means of production" in the analogy you're drawing is the compiler, and the source code is the instructions on how to operate the compiler. The big social problem that people are trying to tackle isn't access to compilers, it's access to those instructions. We've gotten to the point where most programs are written in common languages, and most common languages have free (as in freedom) compilers, interpreters, runtimes, etc. It's true that some people have definitely tried to write programs in their own languages with their own secret compilers just to make things even more difficult for potential copyright infringers, but thankfully that practice is not common because it has way more drawbacks than it does advantages.