On Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 10:02:46PM -0600, pjfjacks wrote: > A computer program is created as a collection of words - a unique collection > of those words, that when compiled and executed on a target OS will > (hopefully!) perform some function(s). No. A computer program is not it's source code. That's an important distinction to make! A computer cannot run your source code. The source code is merely there so you do not have to write out big integers to make the computer do some work. If I write code down on a piece of paper, a computer will *never, ever* be able to run *that*. I must enter it in a digital form and have it translated by some kind of compiler/interpreter/virtual machine/whatever. However, if I draw a picture on that piece of paper, it is already serving as a perfectly good picture. That's why I say a computer program is merely an integer. > To say that a software author cannot "own" that software nor have copyrights > to it is the same as to say an author / poet / screenwriter / columnist / > etc. cannot have any control over his work (or get paid for doing it) once > it is finished. This is preciely the thesis that I debunked in my first mail. I do see something funadementally different because a computer program (not the source code) is merely an integer. Like I said to Lee - I don't necessarily feel like I'm ready to throw away all copyright as a result. There are oodles of pragmatic reasons to keep it. But I also find it very uncomfortable to assert ownership to an integer. -- Ross Vandegrift ross@xxxxxxxxxxxx "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell." --St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
