I think I'm on the same page as Crosbie on this. My rough understanding was
that people shared code before the GNU GPL it wasnt necessary to force
them via copyright licenses. I thought copyleft functioned more as a defence
against anyone who pillaged from the software community and used copyright
to shut everyone else out from accessing otherwise free information. Which
is to say, without copyright, the GPL wouldnt have been needed in the first
place.
As for examples of how free software would have succeeded in a world without
copyright laws, we could look at the pre-GNU community that Stallman wanted
to preserve via copyleft, and we can look at a large portion of other
research fields. A buddy of mine is a palaeontologist, and he does
occasionally run into researchers who hoard fossils from their colleagues.
But since theres no IP law that stops others from digging up similar
fossils, and since the bulk of his community benefits from sharing
reasearch, their work can progress quite well without legal/state coercion.
From: "Crosbie Fitch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization
inparticular <[email protected]>
To: 'Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization
inparticular'<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] CC/fc.o/Tot
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:51:08 -0000
> From: Asheesh Laroia
> I just want to point out here that the "If you distribute modified
> binaries, you must also distribute modified source code" provision of
the
> GNU General Public License - the key tenet of "copyleft" proposed by the
> Free Software Foundation - would not work without copyright.
This is a tricky one.
The reason why the GPL obliges no obfuscation, is because copyright
incentivises obfuscation.
Howver, without copyright, no-one will buy obfuscated software because it
will be given away for nothing. People will only pay for software in the
form of source code - for then they will actually have the software they
are
buying, rather than simply the use of it (which they will already have for
nothing as a promotional demo for the real thing).
A big problem in understanding why the GPL doesn't need copyright, is that
people imagine the GPL without the force of copyright, but still within a
framework in which copyright continues to exist (because its absence is
tricky to conceive). This doesn't work. You must imagine an environment
without copyright, and then every single one of the GPL's requirements will
be unnecessary. There will be no need to compel disclosure of source code,
because its disclosure will be correctly valued in the free market
(unaffected by copyright's monopolistic privileges).
So, copyleft is redundant in the absence of copyright.
It's a bit like saying without subzero temperatures the igloo could not
remain viable as a habitable shelter, ipso facto mankind needs to preserve
a
subzero climate in order to ensure igloo manufacturers can continue their
business and provide us all with comfortable dwellings.
Well, the idea is that without subzero temperatures you wouldn't need
igloos, you could get by with less frigid structures.
Not a perfect metaphor by any means, but it's in the right direction.
> Here you ask us avoid invoking "anthropomorphological liberty"...
Yes I caution against mistaking 'free' as applying to culture rather than
the community that creates it.
> ...and here you write comparing copyrighted works to slaves.
Not at all.
I compare the suspension of a persons's liberty for the commercial benefit
of one who enslaves them, to copyright's suspension of artists' liberty for
the benefit of the publisher who exploits their consequent monopoly, or
sells restoration of that liberty to those artists who wish to enjoy it -
these days, at great expense.
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