Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Rob Thorpe
Date : Wed Aug 31 2005 03:21 am

Randy Howard wrote:
> Rob Thorpe wrote
> (in article
> <1125429596.199157.6770@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>):
>
> >> 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.
> >
> > Exactly, in the other professions mentioned it's the work product that
> > copyright is applied to.  In programming source code is the product the
> > programmer produces.  However, it's something completely different,
> > object code, that the copyright is applied to.
>
> Oh come on.  A compiler and linker is just as much a tool to
> produce object code as a hammer or saw is to a cabinet maker.
> The source code isn't what most programmers are paid for, they
> are paid for the finished product.

A compiler is completely different to a hammer or saw, the hammer or
saw doesn't make the product almost incomprehensible, even to those
knowledgable in the subject.

A woodworker can still understand the woodwork with knowing what tools
were used to produce it.  The product itself reveals how it works, not
so with the program.

> >> 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.
> >
> > I don't think that something that could be changed, it would be an
> > unnecessary imposition on peoples freedom to limit their ability to
> > keep secrets.
>
> But somehow, that only applies to everyone /other/ than those
> wishing to keep source code secret?

No, it should apply to people writing programs too.  It would not be
civilised to demand that people give away their secrets.

What shouldn't apply is copyright, people should not be able to
arbitrarily protect with copyright what they distribute.

> > What I object to is people try to impose copyright on
> > the output of a *compiler* that they don't even understand.
>
> I don't follow you.
>

Oh come on :)

> >>> 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.
> >
> > It's not hard to make a similar sound.  There are very few really
> > difficult things to reverse engineer.
>
> Which is why we have copyright protections and patents.  I will
> readily admit that there are a bunch of completely frivolous
> patents out there, but there are also some genuinely cool,
> innovative, non-obvious inventions too.  Just because a patent
> office suffers from cranial inversion doesn't mean those people
> should be punished through some form of guilt by association.
> Should you be able to patent a GUI for manipulating hierarchical
> data?  I don't think so, yet they get issues all the time.  If
> however, someone invents an actual working holodeck though, they
> probably deserve some protection against it being ripped off by
> some marketing dweeb with the money to pull it off, but not the
> technical ability to do it on his/her own.

Maybe, but today patents don't protect the inventor they only protect
the financial concern that owns the patent.  The law may be intended to
reward people for invention, but in practice it doesn't.

> >> 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.
> >
> > That's completely irrelevant, you're not an artist.  It's not that
> > important that things be understandable to those outside the field,
> > since they couldn't possibly build on them.  The problem is could an
> > artist analyze a peice of modern art?
>
> That would be a funny experiment.  Find 100 artists, get 100
> different opinions.  :-)

Not a problem.  Find 100 art buyers get another 100 opinions.

> > Ideas are the medium modern
> > artists work in.  It's also one of the mediums programmers work in, but
> > the main one is source code - not object code.
>
> Artists work in clay, or wood, or pastels.  They sell statues,
> carvings and paintings though.  Get it?

Yes, but the structure of the clay, wood or pastel is obvious in the
statue, carving or painting.

> >> I have talked to plenty of
> >> artists (and especially architects) that firmly believe they
> >> could improve on famous products in their field,
> >
> > Yes, but do they actually want to?  Probably not, direct derivation is
> > not the province of art.  Artist aim to put their own stamp on what
> > they do.
> >
> > Programming is different, the intention is only to make something that
> > works.
>
> If that were completely true, there would be a lot less broken
> software out there.

Are you saying the intention is to make something artistic?

If that was true I'd be able to write more lisp :(

Programming is best analogised to science not art, because no one
really cares much how aesthetic it is.  It just has to work, so
building directly on the work of others is not tasteless.

> > Even if an artist wants to steal from someone else they're quite able
> > to steal the overall structure.  Many writers have written books
> > deriving plots from others.  Many painters have gleaned insight into
> > techniques by examining the work of others.  Why do programmers not
> > have the same right?
>
> You are arguing that programmers should have a right to
> plagiarism.  Stunning.

Yes.

> Since it is easier to steal a plot from a book than to steal a
> function from a piece of hidden source code, you think there is
> a problem?

Just as scientists are allowed to build on the work of their
predecessors, so programmers should be allowed to build on the work of
their predecessors.
At present they're not because of arbitrary restrictions put in their
way.

> Why should a programmer have a right to use source that I spent
> weeks or months working on, just so he can feel he has it as
> easy as an author too lazy to dream up his own murder plot line?

So the scientist is allowed to benefit from his/her predecessors, the
artist or writer can benefit from his/her predecessors but the
programmer cannot.
This is why programming remains in the dark ages.

> >> 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.
> >
> > It would hardly break any artistic vision to let them try though.
>
> It would however, be totally unfair to the original author,
> unless that person /wanted/ to give it up for such acts.  You
> might as well demand that chemists give up their formulas for
> snake oil, so that other snake oil companies won't have to start
> from scratch.  What rational basis is there for this need to
> make others have it easier off the fruit of others' labor?

I'm asking for nothing much different than other disciplines enjoy.
If you sell snake oil I can buy some of yours, analyze it and steal the
recipe.

If I did a more serious piece of chemistry, like discovering a new
reaction, it would be ridiculous if I could protect in in such a way
that anyone else doing it had to pay me.

> >> 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.
> >
> > Probably not.  Software is dominated by issues of compatability.  So
> > long as companies can hide behind copyright law the important
> > interchange formats will remain proprietry.
>
> Strange, Office is going XML reportedly, despite still retaining
> copyright protection on their software.  How can that be?

They're not doing it in a way that's useful to anyone else.

> That doesn't make any sense at all to me.  try again?

There is no point in those companies that have an effective monopoly,
like microsoft, from trying to build better products, it's just a waste
of their money.

.