From: Robert Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
And RMS is not a loony. He may have different axioms than you, but his
arguments from those axioms are a good sight more well-reasoned than name
calling. See <URL:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/> for more details.
Mmmmmm.... well reasoned yeah?
Try reading the GNU Manifesto:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
"But that is not an argument against the change. It is not considered an
injustice that sales clerks make the salaries that they now do. If
programmers made the same, that would not be an injustice either."
Lovely. So, someone who dropped out of school, has an IQ of 78, and knows
how to push a few buttons on a cash register and STILL has to call out over
the intercom "Tracy... how much is this can of Tomatoes?" should be earning
as much as me, when I've trained myself for over 15 years to perform an art
and craft that is a damn sight more challenging?
"Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as
breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free."
However, that doesn't take into account any concept of Intellectual
Property, which is a very important one.
""Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?"
If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be
a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the
results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative
programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the
use of these programs. "
Nice concept - shame it doesn't match up with any concept of what the real
world is like. Mr. Stallman took too much acid in the 70s.
But back to the skill thing...
""Won't programmers starve?"
I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot
manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we
are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street
making faces, and starving. We do something else. "
Mmmmm.... so writing programs is equivalent to standing on the street and
making faces. Why doesn't Mr. Stallman want programmers to exist? Seems like
he's a bit of a luddite to me.
But here's the most important bit:
"The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors
frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This
practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived
even in part. The copyright system was created expressly for the purpose of
encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was invented--books,
which could be copied economically only on a printing press--it did little
harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals who read the books.
All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society
because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole would
benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we have to ask:
are we really better off granting such license? What kind of act are we
licensing a person to do? "
Problem: Work needs to be paid for. This is the trade/barter system. It
applies to all work; work is only done for something in return (unless that
person chooses to do otherwise).
Work is effectively what happens when someone spends their time on this
planet doing something for someone else's benefit. Therefore, we can say
when someone is performing "work" that someone is using their life up to
benefit someone else, in return for which they will receive something of
value.
When it comes down to it then, why should intellectual property be any
different to anything else? Just because programmers enjoy programming, that
doesn't mean it isn't work -- it's fun, but it's still hard work. The same
applies to all intellectual property, software or otherwise.
This is why RMS's arguments fall; because they assume that because
something's intangible, it shouldn't be possible to charge for it. But the
thing is, that thing is always tangible - it's a chunk of MY LIFE that I'll
never ever be able to get back. And as such, it's my decision what to do
with it.
Mr. Stallman wants a free ride. His notions of social strata, economic
theory, anthropology and history are all very revisionistic and mutate to
fit whichever argument he wants to make. The GPL and LGPL as they stood
until recently were great ideas; take 'em or leave 'em. But to claim in any
way that RMS is NOT as nutty as a fruitcake is to give him more credit than
he could ever deserve.
I can't understand why some people dislike the GPL : it is only there to
stop people exploiting the efforts of others in creating non-proprietary
software by making proprietary derivatives. That is the right of the
author of software. It is significantly less restrictive than proprietary
software licenses, which typically don't allow redistribution at all!
Yeah, but it preaches false altruism. Which is why when I release software
for free, it goes under a variant of the FreeBSD license.
Simon (Not speaking for Microsoft)
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