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Comment by chinese_dan | Hacker News Reader

You can't 'steal' GPL code. Just like you don't 'steal' a movie when you download it.

It's so funny how people in this community change their tune so quickly when the agree or don't agree with something. I can remember the last discussion about piracy and the countless amount of people that proclaimed that a movie or a song can't be 'stolen'. This is the EXACT same principal, and words like 'theft' and 'steal' are used to describe it.

Hypocrisy much?

It means to me that people really don't have many principals and most things are used to justify their own illicit behavior.

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You posted essentially the same comment on the previous WiX thread today [0], and a number of people spent time explaining in detail the misunderstandings you have regarding the GPL, how it works, and what the answers to your questions are (even though you seem to perhaps have viewed your questions as rhetorical ones, they actually do have answers that are not the answers you seem to expect)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12824668

His comment in the other thread was NOT essentially the same as this one, as this comment makes a single point. Copyright infringement is not "stealing", whether it being downloading a movie or not adhering to the terms of the GPL.

Once something is stolen, the original owner no longer has access to it.

People using the word "steal/stolen" in these discussions are usually either being intellectually dishonest, or have succumbed to others using these tautological tricks.

[0] Piracy - another loaded word, me hearties.

I don't know where to start answering your argument.

1. Some people claim pirating movies is not tantamount to stealing. Some people call violating open source licenses stealing. Those are not necessarily the same people.

2. The GPL is a legally enforceable license that grants you the rights to use and distribute code if you abide by the license. If you don't, you're not allowed to. Whether you agree this is stealing or not, it's against the law to use GPL code that belongs to someone else and violate the terms of the license.

"Principles." Also, Hacker News is not one person.

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