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You don't have some fucking inalienable right to my code. If I choose to open source it fine. Just because some cracker asshole gets a copy of it doesn't make i
by happyscrappy 12y ago
You don't have some fucking inalienable right to my code. If I choose to open source it fine. Just because some cracker asshole gets a copy of it doesn't make it a right.
- lmm 12y agoYou have it backwards. You don't have some inalienable right to government-backed control over what I do with my copy of some code. The original will always be yours, but my copy is mine, and actually I do have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever I want to with my own property.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoSo then does the same apply to the copy of your emails that travel across the internet? Once the NSA obtains a copy, do they then have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever they want with what is then their property?
- lmm 12y agoYes they do. I would argue for privacy laws, specific exceptions to that right, just as I support trade secret law. But it would be an exception, a deeply unnatural change to the legal norm, and I would have to make the case on its merits that the value to society of such privacy laws was worth that extraordinary curtailment of the NSA's usual rights.
- sp332 12y agoYou're not allowed to sell stolen property, and I don't think you have a right to distribute code that was obtained illegally. Now if someone got a copy from the author with his/her permission, say by buying it, and then gave you a copy, you might have a defensible point.
- angersock 12y agoYou're assuming a copy of code can be treated like stolen property--there are several practical differences.
- sp332 12y agoNot exactly the same. But there's a difference between distributing stuff that's obtained legally or illegally. First-sale doctrine doesn't apply to stolen goods, and I think there's a similar distinction that should be made with illicit data.