🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <NELSON.90Aug7114525@image.clarkson.edu> nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes:

    I'm saying that people choose to buy software instead of stealing it
    for more than moral or legal reasons.  Even if those reasons were taken
    away by legislation abolishing copyright and patent restrictions, people
    would continue to pay for software.

1) Abolishing copyright and patent laws would not remove the moral
reasons for not stealing software and more than repealing the laws
against murder would remove the moral arguments against that.

2) Patent law has nothing to do with morality, it is there as an
attempt to persuade people to publish. I've never seen anyone try to
justify it as a moral issue.

3) Whether copyright has a moral or a pragmatic basis depends on
whether you believe in intellectual property, which comes down to
whether you think people are responsible for the effects of their
intellectual work.  Not a subject to discuss here as the FSF position
is pretty clear.

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rjc@uk.ac.ed.cstr