Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Sun Aug 28 2005 07:02 am

Randy Howard wrote:
 
> What time of day do you normally wake up from these dreams?  :-)

When I go to sleep. :-)

> Then what /are/ you arguing?  I'm not sure I follow your
> point(s), 

(1) I don't think monopoly control of all copies of some information
pattern based on a notion of "ownership of information", a notion that
necessarily overrides and devalues "ownership of physical property"
should be a "right" - some other people apparently do. 

(2) I don't think monopoly control over the recopying of all copies of
some information pattern should be a "right", and definitely not such a
strong and practically unlimited "right", by now damn near amounting 
to (1) - some other people apparently do.

Ultimately, a bone (seeing as bones were mentioned somewhere by someone)
is an information pattern imposed on a substrate composed of calcium
and phosphorous and carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen atoms and other
trace elements - it's a particular information pattern combined with a
physical substrate, ordering the substrate in a particular way.

Granting people ownership of an "information pattern" is granting them
all bones, not just their bones.  This matters for computing freedom now 
(but will really start to matter as more and more advanced replicators
exist... Shit, meet fan.)

> I tried several times to parse that out in a way that made
> sense, but finally gave up.

Oh well. 

> MS can afford it, 
> because they've raped millions for decades.

Microsoft were acting as the system allowed them to. Of course, there
was a feedback loop - Gates was from an already influential and
somewhat powerful family and as his forces gained influence and power,
his forces could shape the system. Like I said, if copyrights
and patents weren't allowed on software, I doubt Microsoft would be the
problem they are today.

Back before Micro-soft was founded, it was by no means certain software
could be copyrighted, and indeed trade secret law often rather came
into play - see history (writeup somewhat slanted as if copyright 
on software was a good thing, but hey):
http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise17.html

So it wasn't until 1976-78 that US Congress really decided software was
to be enforceably copyrightable in the USA, and it was in 1976 that
Gates wrote his infamous "letter to hobbyists" accusing everyone who
dared modify, redistribute and copy software of "stealing":

http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html

People who think it's mere success-envy or maybe an aesthetic
dislike of shoddy software that produce the dislike of Microsoft and
Gates in the minds of free software folk are on the wrong track (well,
the aesthetic dislike of shoddy software may be a part) and ignorant of
history. It's philosophical opposition, and in some cases actual
recollection of a time when things weren't as bad as they are now in
terms of computing freedom - RMS, for example, is quite old enough to
remember a freer time - he was programming in the early 1970s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman


> I can't think of an example of anyone flying into a building
> over copyright law.  Can you?
> 

No, and I don't think people would, myself.
But I was pointing out that, contrary to your fatalist view,
people do often care enough about some stuff to take action to try 
to oppose it (right or wrong).

.