🚀 go-pugleaf

Isaac wrote:
>I think it's pretty much settled ground in the US that if the employer

> has a published policy disallowing private email on company computers, they
> can read any and all email sent to your computer.   After all, receiving email
> does require company assets besides your worksatation.  I hope this is not a
> central point to your argument.

It isn't a central point, it's a short-circuiting point; if I win
the argument that way, I don't have to bother with a more
complicated argument.

Two issues;
        1) the USA is ruled by pro-corporate fanatics,
        2) the USA has no respect for privacy whatsoever

These two facts combine to make any decision in the USA
on the topic of ownership of email moot to other nations and
rational people at large.


> The software is no more yours than pens and pencils taken from the
> company store room and put in your desk or briefcase are yours.

Huh. EXTREMELY poor analogy.


> Let's say the software had a license allowing it to be used by multiple
> people or on multiple computers as long as the copies weren't used
> simultaneously.  Would that mean that you get to take the software home
> at your discretion even if the company wanted another employee to use
> it on a second shift?

It's possible to steal proprietary software. And if you
take the software home then you are stealing it. Do you
believe it is possible to steal Free software??

You cannot compare proprietary software and GPLed
software the way you did. Proprietary licenses belong to
whomever paid a large sum of money to the holder of
the copyright and whomever this paying license holder
designates. This is not the case with the GPL.

Anyone who touches any copy of GPLed software gets
an immediate non-exclusive license to it. And no
corporation can interfere with this transaction except
by preventing their workers from touching the software
in the first place.

You keep forgetting that software is *not* *physical*
and that the normal rules for transferring of ownership
of physical objects *do* *not* *apply* except insofar as
copyright holders /want/ them to apply. RMS, the FSF
and the countless people who put their work under the
GPL do *not* want the normal rules to apply!

I think that you have failed to read or understand RMS's
published papers on the philosophy behind the GPL,
especially the parts where he explains (over and over)
the complete artificiality of treating software the same
way as physical objects.


>   Would you tell the company that it was your
> software and that they should go buy a second copy?

Does the proprietary license explicitly allow for this
kind of situation? The GPL does!