On 06/06/2016 12:42 PM, John Sullivan wrote: > > Unfortunately that's not the case. It's true that the GPL uses the power > of copyright against copyright, but it also uses copyright to protect > users against non-copyright aggression, including EULAs and patents. If > copyright went away first, we would have no GPL (in its current > incarnation), and proprietary restrictions on software and its > distribution could still be enforced using EULAs (contracts). > > -john >
which is why the hypothetical copyright-abolition discussion needs to follow up with: "…unless we also had laws banning restrictive EULAs and DRM and mandating source release for published works" which is a much more productive way to have this discourse than just stopping at "GPL needs copyright"
