Writing books and music aren't morally wrong because nobody "owns" the seven stories, and nobody owns musical notation. What if anytime you wanted to write a story, you had to go down to OfficeDepot and pick up a license for the "Cinderella" plot? Or a license to use the 'C' note in a song you wanted to write? The point is it would be morally wrong to "own" those things.
I still haven't worked out exactly how to phrase what I was trying to say... Jason On Jan 22, 2008 12:47 PM, Stuart Jansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 12:18 -0700, Jason Edwards wrote: > > For me, closed-source software is morally wrong because it's built on > > top of other people's ideas. > > Just like making a living writing books is morally wrong because there > are only seven stories[1] and photocopiers fundamentally alter the > economics of publishing. Just like making a living writing music is > morally wrong because it's just a rearrangement of previously discovered > musical notes Just liking licensing your software under the GPL is > morally wrong because copyright is morally wrong and the GPL depends on > copyright. > > > You don't have to agree with it, but hopefully you can understand why > > many Free Software advocates feel the way they do. > > Whoa, careful there bucko. You've been drinking too much of the > kool-aid, or ignoring too many of the details. It's possible to be > opposed to software patents without being opposed to copyright. The act > of creating knowledge inherently depends on the discoveries of others. > That's what the "shoulders of giants" quote is about. The act of > creating physical artifacts is fundamentally different. You're one step > away from arguing that I should be forced to work to feed you. > > It's one thing to argue, now that we know about linked lists we should > all be allowed to use them. It's a completely different to argue that > because we know how to write linked lists I should have to write them > for you. > > [1] http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~blf10/stories.html > > > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ > /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
