Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Randy Howard
Date : Fri Aug 26 2005 08:17 pm

Rob Thorpe wrote
(in article 
<1125080649.650054.60790@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>):

> Chris Sonnack wrote:
>> David Golden writes:
>> 
>>> The slavery example shows that what is considered property by the
>>> lawyers can change, anyway.
>> 
>> A bad example, I think, due to the implication that it was just a
>> matter of law that allowed and now prohibits slavery.  The presumption
>> is that, all things being equal, the law could change back again.
>> 
>> I do not believe all things ARE equal.  We realized that we were WRONG
>> about slavery and corrected that wrong.  Actually, we always pretty
>> much knew it was wrong--the error was in trying to pretend that the
>> folks we stole from Africa were not really people, but some form of
>> two-legged, articulate cattle.
>> 
>> I VERY much doubt that the laws that have evolved to protect the
>> efforts of the author/musicial/programmer/architect will ever be
>> viewed as immoral.
> 
> There aren't really any laws that have been created to protect the
> programmer, laws have been created to protect the author,musician and
> architect, yes.  But it's those same laws that have been applied to
> "protect" the programmer also.
> 
> The situations are in fact completely different.  

Not really.  If you slice and dice properly, you can pretend 
otherwise though, as we see.

> There is no concept
> of source and object code for example in any of those other
> occupations.  

And there is no concept of a saxophone reed in software 
developemnt, but that is irrelevant.  What is common is the idea 
of work product.  Not to mention the more general 'trade 
secrets' that allow companies (of any kind) to protect their 
work, such as pharmaceutical companies, 3M to protect the 
formula for the famously bad glue responsible for sticky notes, 
or even for McDonald's to pretend that 'secret sauce' isn't 
really watered down Thousand Island dressing.

> An author, musician or architect can't hide how their
> creations actually work, 

Sure they can.  does a guitarist /have/ to tell you what sort of 
home grown effect he built in his garage for that really cool 
sounding 3rd track on his debut CD?  No.

> as a programmer can be copyrighting an almost
> incomprehensible blob of machine code generated by a compiler.

It's not incomprehensible to someone sufficiently skilled.  
Analyzing modern art and finding meaning in it is as opaque to 
me as reading even the source code, much less the binary of a 
large software project is to a performance artist. 

> The other professions are also not incremental.  I think I could, with
> enough time to understand the problem, add a useful feature to any
> piece of software in existance.  I think most programmers could.  I
> doubt though that I could improve on Chapter 4 of "The Great Gatsby",
> "Mr Tambourine Man" or King's College Chapel, and I doubt anyone else
> could.

Because you are not trained in it.  I have talked to plenty of 
artists (and especially architects) that firmly believe they 
could improve on famous products in their field, just as 
software developers often claim they could make software work 
better if they just had access to the source.  Some are right, 
some are full of crap, it's true in every profession where you 
find opinionated people.

> Lastly, ask users of software whether they think the laws that protect
> it are correct.  Many will tell you that they protect one guy, and his
> name's Bill.

They don't have to buy his software.  The fundamental problem is 
the consumer herd mentality, not the law.  If consumers only 
were willing to pay for quality, and actively boycotted bad 
software, bill gates would not be a billionaire today.  He'd 
probably be selling used cars. 



-- 
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)

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