amicus_curious wrote:
Why would anyone really care unless there were some benefit to be obtained by the author due to the right to control the distribution?
These enforcement lawsuits demonstrate that some authors do care.
It is silly to suppose that the the purpose of a copyright is to lock up the author's work and deny the public access.
Nevertheless, the constitution grants exclusive rights to authors, and without saying anything about financial compensation. The law is written from the normal point of view, where creators do want just money for their work, but in light of the increasing use of public license, going back to original construction is important. That exclusive grant is for a limited time, so eventually the public does gain access.
It would seem obvious that no license at all would fit even more
> nicely into the notion of widely disseminating some work. Some authors, hewing to the FSF philosophy, would find that to be a disincentive - other people taking their work and denying users the four freedoms. Fortunately, the constitution recognizes that offering authors control of their work encourages them to produce it.
these silly suits.
If the copiers of the software do not wish to obey the terms of its license, then they may not make and distribute copies. Regardless of whether they think the terms are silly. > the only opportunity for determining any value. The constitution gives authors exclusive right to their work, be it genius or drivel. Value is not material.
It is hard to see how such republication has any meaning
> for the public as well. Meaning is not material either. But in any case, the GPL explains its meaning in its preamble, and it has great significance for the public. One does not need to be a programmer to see how the four freedoms are being actively withheld - region-coded DVD players, encrypted connections between cable boxes and TV sets, cell phones which can run only approved programs and communicate with approved service providers. Free software works against the conspiracy to deny users access to and knowledge of devices they own. A different recent example is the worldwide crash of Zune 30 players that occurred on December 31. Had its software been free, a fix would have been available in minutes, or even more likely, would have been available before the problem occurred. Republication is important so that users can get exactly the source that is used to build the software they receive. Without this, users who need the source must hunt for it, with no assurance that what they find exactly matches what they have.
The vast majority of people ... is never going to bother
But they benefit anyway, in the same way that they benefit when they can receive service for their cars or appliances or buy replacement parts from someone who is not beholden to the original manufacturer. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
