> You are teetering into the grey areas on the role of software in > entertainment. If this was a movie or song that you consume to get the > experience, you have no problem with protecting the rights of the > artist.
Except that most money from these things don't go to the artists and there is no right to restrict what information others can copy (there are only artificial monopolies). > Like the previously mentioned movie > or music, it is meant to be consumed and not a tool to create > software. So you decide what every user of software considers to be its purpose. I don't agree with this reasoning, the user should be able to e.g. adapt it into a tool to use in other software. (RMS doesn't consider artistic works not for practical use to need to provide the same freedom to users as software, while I believe that any cultural work could be used for an unforeseen practical purpose. Like making typing prediction dictionaries from novels, this would be prevented by nonfree cultural work licensing.) > If I am about to enjoy a 50 hour gaming experience, do I > really need to look at the source code files as a consumer? No, I > would be more interested in the interactive experience. When I'm enjoying editing programs using Emacs, I don't look at Emacs's source code. I don't see a difference in these cases. > Because a developer has to feed his wife and kids and > developing a game at Valve or EA instead of a disjointed community > project does not. No one forces them to have supported partners or children and no one forces them to work for selling software licenses. There are many people getting money in other ways. (It's possible to get money for selling free software or from donations of satisfied users, I don't have data on the effectiveness of these methods.)
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