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Comment by foobar1726 | Hacker News Reader

You should check out this thing called open source software

You should check out this thing called GPL that is the standard license of open source projects like Linux, and heavily depends on copyright laws.

Or are you suggesting open source software is public domain?

You may want to review your history. The GPL is copyleft -it only exists to subvert copyright law by using it against itself in a sort of intellectual legal judo. If "IP" laws were not as they were, there would be no need for the GPL. Software would be Free.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

You are not a developer so you don't understand you can compile to a binary without revealing your sources?

No copyright -> No GPL -> anyone can release their own close source version of open source software.

Why do you think GPL was create in the first place? We always had public domain you know.

My compilers work just fine? Perhaps I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is that you are unable to understand the difference between GPL and public domain.

Okay.

Even if companies didn't have copyright protection on their source code, that doesn't mean they'd post it all on the internet for anybody to freely download.

No, not all of them, but some companies, many organizations, and plenty of individuals would.

Not everything has to be done for a profit. Plenty of us make software, art, and technology because we find it fun and interesting to work on, and because we want to live in a world that is richer for it.

Removing draconian intellectual property laws that mostly only benefit the giant corporations that lobbied for them isn't going to stop me from doing so, and I doubt it would stop many others.

Ok, but copyright law already doesn't stop anyone from putting things into the public domain.

No, but it does give them an incentive not to.

You probably mean you want to take free advantage of what others create, and you offer nothing in return.

But maybe you will pleasantly surprise us and show what kind of valuable thing you create and offer for free.

I only mean what I said. Anything else you infer is your own bias.

I don't know why you are taking such a hostile position towards someone you have never interacted with, but you are welcome to believe what you will. I don't feel any need to prove or justify my actions to Internet strangers. I've participated in the FL/OSS software movement long enough that I still put the FL/ in front of the name.

I don't sell my thoughts, they are freely given. If everyone behaved this way, there would be no need for copyright (or copyleft). I choose to engage the world in the way I wish it to be.

A key component of the GPL is the requirement that source of code of programs that use the GPL code be made available. Without IP laws, how would you achieve that goal of the GPL?

I mostly addressed this in a sibling comment, but I wanted to add that if copyright wasn't preventing companies from copying and building upon the works of others, I find it likely that the industry would be more free and competitive.

Source code is a recipe. You can't copyright recipes by themselves, but that hasn't caused any sort of chilling effect in the food and hospitality industries.

I agree with you that removing copyright protections breaks the GPL. What I think most responses to my comment miss is that we wouldnt NEED the GPL without copyright. Copyleft only exists so that copyright cannot be used by companies against users.

I know Stallman isnt the most popular on this forum, but history has sorta proven he was right, time after time.

Does this matter anymore when everything can be reverse engineered?

> You should check out this thing called open source software

Open source actually demonstrates that copyright serves a purpose. There are still customers for non-open software, even when open alternatives exist, so the ability to monetize brings new offerings to the economy.

Open source software is unique in that it takes little to no capital investment to create. People post free art too. It doesn't mean that Game of Thrones didn't cost anything to produce.

Writing books and creating music also takes no capital investment

And people do do those things out of passion, and many of them are happy to share it so you can listen to it for free. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't own the right to control what happens to what they made.

Sure, but you said that open source software is unique because it doesn't take capital. It isn't unique, as demonstrated by the two other examples (out of many) that I posted.

Whether someone should own the right to control is a separate issue. Your previous response made it seem like the lack of capital requirement was the distinction, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

You argued that if you didn't own the copyright, there would be no incentive for creating and sharing work. Someone said that open source software shows that you can have creative work without needing to maintain ownership. You then said that was only applicable to software.

It clearly isn't, because of my examples.

Unfortunately, you're fighting an endless battle.

> That doesn't mean that they shouldn't own the right to control

What value system grants the right to control what you make?

Outside human culture, where does nature exhibit this value?

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