Re: [LAU] ffmpeg or libav

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:07 AM, drew Roberts <zotz@email-addr-hidden> wrote:

> On Sunday 13 January 2013 08:33:39 Paul Davis wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:13 AM, Dan MacDonald <allcoms@email-addr-hidden>
> wrote:
> > > If you happen not to like it and you are pro copyrights and non-free
> > > software then [... ]
> >
> > just to nitpick ... "pro-copyrights" makes no sense. The GPL is founded
> in
> > and on copyright law. Without copyrights, the GPL would be unenforceable,
> > and arguably meaningless.
>
> Hardly. The belief is that software should not be subject to copyright.
> GPL is
> the legal judo to try to get to that state where the law has not changed.
>
> The only thing lost were software to be made not subject to copyright
> would be
> the ability to require source code. I think I recall RMS writing to the
> effect that without copyright, the benefit of hiding source would go away
> for
> most? software.
>

without copyright laws to allow an "intellectual property" owner to dictate
what the terms of using their creations are, the GPL would have no meaning,
because nothing could require reciprocal "openness". it would basically be
a BSD-license style situation.

copyright law is what requires someone using copylefted software to obey
the terms of GPL. no copyright law - no enforcement.

now, if you wish to be suitably idealist, you could suggest that we really
want copyright law to be replaced by copyleft, with similar powers of
enforcement. RMS did acknowledge early on that although this might be the
best possible arrangement (at least vis-a-vis software), that it was not
likely to happen in any foreseeable time.

>
> (The above really only holds where software is also not subject to patent
> protection as well I think.)
>
> In essence it depends on copyright to undo copyright effects. Without
> copyright law, copyright law would have no negative effects to undo.
>

there would also be no way to require anyone to honor my intentions that my
source code be made available to anyone that my software is distributed to.

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Received on Sun Jan 13 20:15:02 2013