Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Thu Aug 25 2005 09:40 pm

Scott Moore wrote:!
> 
> "markets" are based on ownership, so that is the use of a capitalist
> term without understanding its meaning, sorry.
> 

It is you who suffer from limited understanding. I thought it reasonably
clear from my post that I was talking about software as service -
markets for service provision quite obviously exist in real-world
capitalist systems.

I wrote:
>> A free market in software, in writing new and updating or otherwise
>> customising old software - gee, stuff programmers do - is the aim for
>> many FSF-supporting programmers. 

See?  Or maybe you still don't, in which case, well, I really can't help
you understand much better.

If you're primarily a software distributor reliant on copyright monopoly
to inflate the prices you can charge, your days are numbered.
If you're a programmer, you're alright.  Programmers provide the service
of writing programs. And hey, this is comp.programming, not
comp.software.distribution


> You have all of those things you desire. You can make software,
> distribute it, have others modify it, all of that, all of the things
> you claim to want, that is open source, that is freeware.
> 

"You don't have to own slaves just because slavery is legal..."
or "just because we are both legally allowed kill people doesn't
mean you have to - you have all the things you desire, since you don't
have to kill people at all".

The slavery example shows that what is considered property by the
lawyers can change, anyway.

> However, you then proceed to avocate that the right to produce paid
> software be removed, by force of law, from others.
> 

I believe you have every right to be paid for the service of production
of software. It is you who seek the force of law to prevent others
passing on information that you yourself have not been deprived of.

> However, you aren't avocating that. You are avocating abolishment, by
> force of law, of my means to make a living.
> 

Your means to make a living (at least until you make a pretty small
mental leap to software as a service), apparently rests on the
existence of an unjust law in the first place.

> I have a problem with that. And the law is on my side. 

The law was on slave owners' side once too.  Laws can be changed.

> You could just 
> be happy and go make your software and distribute that. 

For the most part I do - I'll now be getting back to helping produce
sufficient good free software that the medieval closed-source crap 
is simply swamped, you're rehashing arguments that were
adequately addressed years ago in the free software world and this
thread is thus boring.

> The fact that me, and what I do is intolerable to you is a 
> problem that exists only  in your mind. 
> 

I don't really give a direct crap what you do as such - I just don't
think you deserve such strong legally enforceable power to stop others
passing on information (yes, I disagree with many misguided "privacy"
and "data protection" laws too).

.