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I've always been fascinated by the FSF's interplay with IP law. Mostly because of the 'copyleft' hack, which is the core underpinning of the GPL and, by extensi

by mpyne 12y ago

I've always been fascinated by the FSF's interplay with IP law. Mostly because of the 'copyleft' hack, which is the core underpinning of the GPL and, by extension, GNU. If you didn't have IP law at all, what you'd have is effectively public domain, without even the 'moral right' of attribution of authorship. The kinds of systems you'd be able to build with that would resemble BSD codes, not GPL codes. This would suffice for open-source software, to be sure, but not for Free software with all the political trappings that it brings [1]. In much the same way as DRM aims to restrict what you can do with the bits and bytes of media and code in favor of the 'IP holders', copyleft aims to restrict what you can do with the bits and bytes of source and even binary codes in favor of the 'IP users'. While the class of set of people benefiting from IP is different, it all still relies on IP. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-copyleft.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-copyleft.html

Mathnerd314 12y ago
But presumably you'd also be able to reverse-engineer the binaries much more freely (currently the DMCA prohibits most of those activities), so the market for source code would have a lot more players than just the original owner. Consider the interplay between Wine and Microsoft; in the absence of IP, Wine would probably be a lot more feature-ful and popular, perhaps even driving Microsoft out of business.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Without IP you wouldn't need Wine, you could just copy Windows as much as needed.
mlinksva 12y ago
Forced transparency does not need to rely on copyright. If it is a good idea, it should be advocated as consumer, competition or procurement regulation, applied to all software.
- mpyne 12y ago
  Calling a turd "transparency regulation" instead of "intellectual property" is just changing the name of the same thing. Under any copyleft type of regime, even if you remove copyright and replace with some other enabling law, you're still using legal controls to enforce rights management of bits and bytes.
  - mlinksva 12y ago
    Not the same thing. The copyleft hack on copyright is enforced by copyright holders, thus property (or whatever word wishes to use if not "property") based. Other easily imagined mechanisms for forcing transparency/source revelation would have no relation to copyright nor any other kind of property; I wouldn't call them copyleft any more than I'd call forced transparency in other domains (e.g., finance) copyleft. Such would still be "using legal controls" (or more broadly "using policy controls", as in the case of procurement, which could be private) but not necessarily to "enforce rights management of bits and bytes". The legal controls could be for example around certification of a product: no source, no certification, no legally selling product. In that case the bits and bytes independent of a product on the market would be unregulated, not subject to forced transparency.
    - mpyne 12y ago
      > The legal controls could be for example around certification of a product: no source, no certification, no legally selling product. GPL forbids giving away infringing code as well. Does your proposed regulatory regime also encompass forcing all open-source and hobby coders to get one of your licenses before they can enable the "download as ZIP" feature on their GitHub?
      - mlinksva 12y ago
        Could, probably wouldn't. Just as consumer, competition, procurement and other regulation typically doesn't cover hobbyists. I'd call that a feature -- more effective enforcement for commercial entities, hobbyists can ignore. Contrast with copyright hack, applies to all, commercial entities can ignore without consequence.
nfoz 12y ago
I believe that copyright law should be abolished. (Eventually, slowly, responsibly.) While I release some works as CC0 [1], I still use the GPLv3+ on much source code because it's the best way to protect freedom given the existing system. This isn't a dichotomy nor hypocritical. I would prefer for the GPL and other copyright licenses to be unenforcable; unfortunately that isn't the case. So I prefer not to BSD-license my works because then copyright could be used against me to take my rights from me. [1] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
- thisisdave 12y ago
  >I prefer not to BSD-license my works because then copyright could be used against me to take my rights from me. Can you elaborate on this point? I don't know what you're referring to.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    BSD-ish licenses are "permissive", in that you can release modifications/derivatives of the work (in binary or source) that restrict how those modified versions are distributed. e.g. I write a BSD-licensed song, and someone remixes that song and says that I cannot copy the remixed version.
    - teacup50 12y ago
      How does that take away any of your rights, though? The BSD licensed song still exists.
      - nfoz 12y ago
        The original exists, but the modified versions that are now prevalent are works that do not grant me my rights. I have contributed to the arsenal of my adversaries; my works have become part of the works that deny me rights that I consider important, the right to share and remix. Whereas when copyright is abolished, if I have the song I can copy the song. They cannot put terms on it that would withhold my freedom to do so. I don't really need the GPL anymore; I don't demand anyone's source code, just my freedoms with the knowledge and information that is available to me.
mehrdada 12y ago
I have a hard time parsing your argument in the context of the original post. FSF is not against all forms of copyright. FSF is against all forms of software patents, and believes copyright should be more limited and sharing in particular should be completely legalized. What FSF is particularly against, in this post, is combining, arguably completely separate, trademark laws, copyright laws, patent laws, and trade secret laws, under a useless umbrella term "Intellectual Property" which can be leveraged for propaganda purposes and is of little real use.

by mpyne 12y ago

Mathnerd314 12y ago

But presumably you'd also be able to reverse-engineer the binaries much more freely (currently the DMCA prohibits most of those activities), so the market for source code would have a lot more players than just the original owner. Consider the interplay between Wine and Microsoft; in the absence of IP, Wine would probably be a lot more feature-ful and popular, perhaps even driving Microsoft out of business.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Without IP you wouldn't need Wine, you could just copy Windows as much as needed.

mlinksva 12y ago

Forced transparency does not need to rely on copyright. If it is a good idea, it should be advocated as consumer, competition or procurement regulation, applied to all software.

mpyne 12y ago
Calling a turd "transparency regulation" instead of "intellectual property" is just changing the name of the same thing. Under any copyleft type of regime, even if you remove copyright and replace with some other enabling law, you're still using legal controls to enforce rights management of bits and bytes.
- mlinksva 12y ago
  Not the same thing. The copyleft hack on copyright is enforced by copyright holders, thus property (or whatever word wishes to use if not "property") based. Other easily imagined mechanisms for forcing transparency/source revelation would have no relation to copyright nor any other kind of property; I wouldn't call them copyleft any more than I'd call forced transparency in other domains (e.g., finance) copyleft. Such would still be "using legal controls" (or more broadly "using policy controls", as in the case of procurement, which could be private) but not necessarily to "enforce rights management of bits and bytes". The legal controls could be for example around certification of a product: no source, no certification, no legally selling product. In that case the bits and bytes independent of a product on the market would be unregulated, not subject to forced transparency.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    > The legal controls could be for example around certification of a product: no source, no certification, no legally selling product. GPL forbids giving away infringing code as well. Does your proposed regulatory regime also encompass forcing all open-source and hobby coders to get one of your licenses before they can enable the "download as ZIP" feature on their GitHub?
    - mlinksva 12y ago
      Could, probably wouldn't. Just as consumer, competition, procurement and other regulation typically doesn't cover hobbyists. I'd call that a feature -- more effective enforcement for commercial entities, hobbyists can ignore. Contrast with copyright hack, applies to all, commercial entities can ignore without consequence.

nfoz 12y ago

I believe that copyright law should be abolished. (Eventually, slowly, responsibly.) While I release some works as CC0 [1], I still use the GPLv3+ on much source code because it's the best way to protect freedom given the existing system. This isn't a dichotomy nor hypocritical. I would prefer for the GPL and other copyright licenses to be unenforcable; unfortunately that isn't the case. So I prefer not to BSD-license my works because then copyright could be used against me to take my rights from me. [1] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

thisisdave 12y ago
>I prefer not to BSD-license my works because then copyright could be used against me to take my rights from me. Can you elaborate on this point? I don't know what you're referring to.
- nfoz 12y ago
  BSD-ish licenses are "permissive", in that you can release modifications/derivatives of the work (in binary or source) that restrict how those modified versions are distributed. e.g. I write a BSD-licensed song, and someone remixes that song and says that I cannot copy the remixed version.
  - teacup50 12y ago
    How does that take away any of your rights, though? The BSD licensed song still exists.
    - nfoz 12y ago
      The original exists, but the modified versions that are now prevalent are works that do not grant me my rights. I have contributed to the arsenal of my adversaries; my works have become part of the works that deny me rights that I consider important, the right to share and remix. Whereas when copyright is abolished, if I have the song I can copy the song. They cannot put terms on it that would withhold my freedom to do so. I don't really need the GPL anymore; I don't demand anyone's source code, just my freedoms with the knowledge and information that is available to me.

mehrdada 12y ago

I have a hard time parsing your argument in the context of the original post. FSF is not against all forms of copyright. FSF is against all forms of software patents, and believes copyright should be more limited and sharing in particular should be completely legalized. What FSF is particularly against, in this post, is combining, arguably completely separate, trademark laws, copyright laws, patent laws, and trade secret laws, under a useless umbrella term "Intellectual Property" which can be leveraged for propaganda purposes and is of little real use.