On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:07 AM, drew Roberts <zotz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hardly. The belief is that software should not be subject to copyright. GPL isOn Sunday 13 January 2013 08:33:39 Paul Davis wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:13 AM, Dan MacDonald <allcoms@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > If you happen not to like it and you are pro copyrights and non-free
> > software then [... ]
>
> just to nitpick ... "pro-copyrights" makes no sense. The GPL is founded in
> and on copyright law. Without copyrights, the GPL would be unenforceable,
> and arguably meaningless.
the legal judo to try to get to that state where the law has not changed.
The only thing lost were software to be made not subject to copyright would be
the ability to require source code. I think I recall RMS writing to the
effect that without copyright, the benefit of hiding source would go away for
most? software.
without copyright laws to allow an "intellectual property" owner to dictate what the terms of using their creations are, the GPL would have no meaning, because nothing could require reciprocal "openness". it would basically be a BSD-license style situation.
copyright law is what requires someone using copylefted software to obey the terms of GPL. no copyright law - no enforcement.
now, if you wish to be suitably idealist, you could suggest that we really want copyright law to be replaced by copyleft, with similar powers of enforcement. RMS did acknowledge early on that although this might be the best possible arrangement (at least vis-a-vis software), that it was not likely to happen in any foreseeable time.
(The above really only holds where software is also not subject to patent
protection as well I think.)
In essence it depends on copyright to undo copyright effects. Without
copyright law, copyright law would have no negative effects to undo.
there would also be no way to require anyone to honor my intentions that my source code be made available to anyone that my software is distributed to.
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