Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Scott Moore
Date : Thu Aug 25 2005 02:22 pm

David Golden wrote:
> 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.
> 

Software isn't a service, so you lose again. Certainly you can have service
for software, but that does not make it a service. If your arguments consist
of calling black white and vice versa, this could well go on forever.


> 
> 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

If in your newspeak you mean, do I sell software that I programmed, the
answer is yes. You attempt to imply that programmers who make product and
those that sell it are separate, and one is bad, and the other good,
failed. Sorry, those big bad corporations who are screwing over programmers
working in sweat shops exist only in your little rabid imagination. I am
a programmer who sells my programs. Imagine that.

Lets save some time here. If the dividing line is if I work alone, or
employ others, then you have just applied the same test for good/bad as
the USSR did during 70+ years of communisim. Gary Powers, the shot down
U2 pilot was defended in his show trial by the Soviet lawyer who pleaded
that Gary's father was self-employed, and therefore not at odds with
the communist system.

> 
> 
> 
>>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.

I don't know what the hell you are talking about, but neither do you.
Who is the slave, who is the master ? Or is this just a pointless
analogy ?

> 
> 
>>However, you then proceed to advocate 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.

How, pray tell, does the copyright law prevent you from passing your
information to anyone, anywhere, any time? Yes, the copyright
prevents you from ripping off my work, as it should. If you advocate
distribution of free software, then make some. If you advocate distribution
of work that I wrote, then yes, thats illegal. Your wish to take my
property is called *confiscation*. And it's illegal. And its wrong too.

> 
> 
>>However, you aren't advocating that. You are advocating 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.

Just as a automobile makers living rests on the unjust laws against
car "sharing", yes. Say, they still have laws against these kinds of
injustices. Yes, its hard to find places like that now, but Cuba
and North Korea seem to be holding fast to them.

> 
> 
>>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.

No, you are "bored" because you are losing the argument in this thread.

Bummer that the proletariats here don't want to be freed from their
chains.

> 
> 
>>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).

I don't think you deserve the legal right to confiscate my hard earned
work. And that "right" has nothing to do with freeware/open source,
which can and does exist in harmony with copyright and paidware.

But because that does not sit well with your little social revolution
theory, you can't be content to let freeware/open source live and let
live with paidware, you advocate abolishment of paidware.

So you sit and flip back and forth between the arguments that freeware/
openware will eliminate paidware and the need for copyright, and
that copyright and paidware need to be abolished by law. Why the dual
opinion? Because it isn't working for you, people just aren't signing
up to your little social revolution in fast enough numbers to take over
and declare Stallman king as yet.

.