🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill, I'm missing part of your point.  You talk alot about what the
owners of software copyrights shouldn't be allowed to do, but what I
can't figure out (maybe I missed some of your posts) is what rights
you believe others should have were, say, the source code to be
released?  I think this is the more important point.

I wouldn't expect you to say that anyone should be able to take
someone else's software and sell it.  So what would you like to see?




On 4 Oct 1998 20:57:19 GMT, unruh@physics.ubc.ca (Bill Unruh) wrote:

>In <6v6a4o$c9h$1@Mercury.mcs.net> les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>>>software) They are simply employees of large companies, who are the ones
>>>to own the copyrights/patents etc.
>
>>That doesn't follow.  The employees work for pay; the pay is given
>>with the expectation of being able to recover the cost and perhaps
>>make a profit by being able to limit distribution of copies to the
>>people who pay some reasonable amount for them (reasonable having
>>the usual meaning between buyer and seller).  
>But is is not the producer of the product who is profiting from that
>product and controlling the rights to that product. The software writer
>is the producer, not the company. So, if it is the producer who you
>would like to see profit, patents and copyrights should be disallowed
>for comapnies, but should only be holdable by individuals who could
>prove that it was they who produced the goods. That is my point.
>You defend copyright and patents on the basis that the producer should
>be able to profit from his/her labours, and then allow the profit to go
>to people who never engaged in that labour.
>Your emotive defence of copyright is thus flawed.
>
>>>There is absolutely no evidence that
>>>reducing the copyright protection to say 3 or 5 years on software would
>>>slow the production of that software by any significant amount. 70 years
>>>is absurd. 
>
>>This should be irrelevant.  If you want to use someone else's work you
>>should agree to their terms or find an alternative.  The more important
>>issue is that we should not be forced to use any single work in order
>>to interoperate with anything else.  Interchange standards should be
>>open in all cases and competition would take care of everything else.
>
>Fine. so why should the state get involved and force certain conditions
>on the contract? Patent and copyright law are conditions forced on the
>interactions by the state which I or the producer have no control over.
>In particular, the consumer is disadvantaged by these extraneous terms.
>Why? I have argued that there could be reasons why it is beneficial to
>the society to institute such, but the current situation is not thus
>beneficial It is a use of the arm of state power to advantage the few
>at the expense of the many.
>
>>>There is loads of evidence that the refusal of society to strike a
>>>harder bargain (eg release of source code as a condition for copyright
>>>or patent protection) is vastly damaging to society. (see the Year 2000
>>>mess as an example).
>
>>Perhaps, but that is a separate issue. 
>
>Sorry, that is the issue being discussed here.