Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 19:28:27 -0500 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" <redprince@redprince.net> To: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20000513192827.00895a10@mail85.pair.com> In-Reply-To: <20000514023000.A16663@happy.checkpoint.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20000513180213.00894400@mail85.pair.com> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <Pine.BSF.4.10.10005130735370.20100-100000@hydrant.intranova.net> <391D4DAD.FD80980A@picusnet.com> <003b01bfbcdc$6059fb40$a164aad0@kickme> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <20000513205610.A22103@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <20000514010614.A16058@happy.checkpoint.com> <3.0.6.32.20000513180213.00894400@mail85.pair.com>
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At 02:30 14-05-2000 +0000, Anatoly Vorobey wrote: >Chess games cannot be copyrighted. A chess player does not create anything. He discovers how things work. He discovers laws of nature. He does not own those laws. A programmer creates a product. He builds a machine. The fact the machine is "soft" and easy to duplicate is irrelevant. The program is a program not because it starts as words in a programming language. The program only matters because after it is compiled, it is loaded into computer memory and rewires the circuitry of the computer. It turns a general-purpose machine into a different machine that now does something it could not do before (I mean in actualitate, not in potentia). >And yet, if you publish a game that you played, everyone is legally >and morally free to republish it however he wants, without paying you >a dime. Why? Because chess games are not intellectual property. So? Chess is a game, not a new machine. >The law doesn't agree with me here if I copy an article written by >you instead (even though a chess game might be much more imaginative, >original and important than an article). Why? Because the state wants >to give you an incentive to write articles, and is less interested >to give you an incentive to play chess games. No, the state is not giving you an incentive to write articles (I'm talking about the purpose of the protection), it is recognizing that you own what you created. >Unless you dwell on that, and realize that intellectual property >is *not* automatically a natural, "God-given" right like material >property is thought by many to be, you will repeat the same basic >mistake in your reasoning. Stallman's idea is that intellectual objects >belong to everyone who cares to use them, Software is not intellectual objects, it is a machine. And for what it's worth, I don't believe in God. Nor do I necessarily believe that the concept of property is "natural." But as long as I live in a society where everyone else gets paid for his work, I'd like to be paid for mine. > and the world has been >living according to *his* idea for thousands of years, excluding >the last two centuries. The world had no concept of anything like software until this century (assuming we both agree we still are in the 20th). >Why should you be able to stop me from using something created by >you, if that act of using it absolutely does not hinder you in any >way? It does hinder me if I work and do not get paid for while I live in a society I have to pay everyone else for their work. It is a matter of justice. > If I live in a room you own, you can't live in it. If I >copy a poem you wrote, you *can* continie reading it. I don't write poems I design machines. > The situation >in which I have to pay you in order to copy that poem or that >source code is *not* "natural": it is specifically designed to >benefit *you* as the author. It is designed to benefit me for my work. > Which is fine with me (but not with Stallman), Which makes him a Communist. >though I wish you would at least understand that. Having spent tens of thousands of dollars to produce soft machinery that I was not paid and had to go bankrupt several years ago for thanks to the attitude like yours and Stallman's, I understand. I wish you and Stallman did, and everyone else who felt he was not hurting me in any way by taking away product of years of my toil by using it without pay. >> The >> "party" has full control over it. The "party" can even change the license >> in the future to whatever it wants, without the author having any say. > >This is not grounded in fact. If I release a piece of software under >GPL, you are *not* free to change the license; I did not say *I* was. Stallman is. The GPL states it covers this or any FUTURE version of GPL. Stallman can decide to take full property of any and all software ever released under GPL with its (the software's) engineers having nothing to say about it. >*You* are arguing that a programmer should be free to use whatever >license he wants, and Stallman does *exactly that*. This is what copyleft >is all about. No, Stallman is NOT doing that. Stallman reserves the right to change GPL at any time without the programmer having anything to say about it. If Stallman release his OWN software that way, that is his business. That he reserves the right to change the license to work of other programmers is not. Especially if, as is generally the case, most of those programmers do not realize it. >> Everyone gives according to his abilities, everyone takes (in theory) >> according to his needs. > >No, Stallman has never (AFAIK) said that. You're putting words in >his mouth again. I did not say he said those specific words. It is the *idea* that he espouses and preaches vehemently regardless of its wording. >Now you're being paranoid. This "he's lying and hiding his true >intentions" argument, by the way, is a basic argument of Marxism. He has an agenda and is not fully honest about it. Adam To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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