Stallman Spreading FUD about Gates & His Charity Fund
neosmart.net
neosmart.net
>"Is Richard Stallman seriously suggesting that it’s right to illegally obtain copyrighted software?"
No he isn't. He's suggesting that Bill Gates should have allowed people to share his software.
>"It’s one thing to say that Gates should never have charged for his software and another to say that it’s OK to use it without paying."
Stallman is saying that the software should have been free as in speech, not free as in beer. Nowhere did he imply that it's OK to use the software without paying.
ESR just compared Obama to Hitler. No, I am not kidding.
Quote: "There is a pattern in the lives of the really dangerous charismatic tyrants that they tend to have originated on the geographical and cultural fringes of the societies they came to dominate, outsiders seeking ultimate insiderhood by remaking the “inside” in their own image. Hitler, the border Austrian who ruled Germany; Napoleon, the Corsican who seized France; and Stalin, the Georgian who tyrannized Sovet Russia. And, could it be…Obama, the half-black kid from Hawaii?"
>is Richard Stallman seriously suggesting that it’s right to illegally obtain copyrighted software?
Software is recored knowledge. Human progress means always building on top of somebody's knowledge. "Ownership" of knowledge is immoral and takes away human freedom. 'Copyrighted software' has no more rights to exist than 'copyrighted math'.
Algorithms, and software ideas, however, are like math. So patents on software make no sense. There's a difference between code and algorithms; algorithms shouldn't be copyrighted/patented; code, on the other hand, is the property of whomever wrote it, and thus it may be copyrighted.
What code are you talking about? All of the code I have is software.
It is wrong to take it without prior owner's permission.
Is that always the case? It certainly isn't always true about literature. As an american I'm happy my country's founders didn't have to worry about getting permission to use the ideas that went into the literature of our government.
Algorithms, and software ideas, however, are like math.
They aren't just "like" math, they are math. They may be other things as well.
Code is the property of whomever wrote it, and thus it may be copyrighted.
Not all code is or should be that way.
If you're going to compare code and literature, please keep in mind that the early history of literature was almost entirely devoted to maintaining social order and mundane matters of business transactions.