Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again) To : comp.programming From : Antoon Pardon Date : Wed Sep 21 2005 08:16 am Op 2005-09-21, Chris Sonnack schreef : > Antoon Pardon writes: > >>>> How does that differ from me, just brewing my own? >>> >>> I think the key factor here is the recipe - assume that Chris has >>> a particularly good recipe for beer and is making a living brewing >>> beer to that recipe. >> >> I could have a good recipe too, just as others. Maybe Chris got his >> his idea for a recipe from a public source. > > And then spent years and funds developing my own "touch". If you > steal the fruits of that effort, you are stealing from me. No I'm not. You don't have any less than before, so you were not stolen from. You may have suffered damages, but similar damages can come from some else developing his own touch that is better. Now if you argue that people who invested in development should have protection from the law against damages that result in people using your results with compensation, I can understand that. But that doesn't mean people stole from you. >>> If you are copying - ie. brewing to the same recipe then you are >>> depriving Chris of exclusivity. If you are brewing your own beer >>> to a different recipe then that is fine. >> >> But depriving someone of exclusivity, is not the same as stealing. > > Correct. This isn't about exclusivity. It's about protecting the > author of a work from theft of that work. No it isn't. Your work wasn't stolen. You still have the knowledge of your own recipe, so nothing was taken from you. > IF--AND ONLY IF--you can derive a **similar** work by following much > the same process I followed, then it is YOUR work that is protected. > > It has nothing to do with how useful the work is. > It has nothing to do with how easy it is to copy the work. > > It has everything to do with respecting the author's work. That doesn't make disrespect of someone's work, theft. >> If I am the owner of something, in general it is pretty clear I am >> the only person with rights concerning the property. > > Indeed. And if I spent years coming up with the perfect beer recipe, > do I not own the results of that effort? No, information is not something that can be owned. >> However if I know something, it is not at all that clear that I >> should be the only one with rigths concerning this knowledge. So >> arguments that try to treat knowledge as a form of property are >> IMO bound to fail. > > Well, now, you went from "not at all clear" to "bound to fail", so > you seem to be pre-supposing the answer here. > > But I ask you, on what moral grounds do you claim that knowledge is > freely shared? I didn't claim that it is freely shared. Nobody can be forced to share what he knows. I claimed you can't treat it as property. If property is handed from one person to an other, the original owner looses the property (although he can get something in exchange). If information is handed from one person to an other, that information is not lost to the first person. > If I have a staff of research encyclopediaists doing an online > encyclopedia, do you say I must make that knowledge freely available? Excelent example. The information in your encyclopedia will be freely available. You won't be able to forbid anyone from taking information out of your encyclopedia distributing it. They will have to use their own words to communicate this informations, because you have copy right over the articles in your encyclopedia, but you have no, or very little right over the information in it. > How do I pay my researchers? Today you will probably go broke because people have other means to find the information in your encyclopedia. You are not the owner of this information. Should people be willing to pay for your service it will be for the extra organisation you bring in your data, the ease of finding something or other things they may find usefull. -- Antoon Pardon .