Re: [LAU] ffmpeg or libav

From: drew Roberts <zotz@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Sun Jan 13 2013 - 17:44:54 EET

On Sunday 13 January 2013 10:17:23 Paul Davis wrote:
> 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.

without copyright laws (and patent laws) there would be no "intellectual
property" with respect to software so it would not be a BSD-license style
situation as there would be no opportunity for forkers etc. to take a program
to the All Rights Reserved realm as that realm would not exist.
>
> copyright law is what requires someone using copylefted software to obey
> the terms of GPL. no copyright law - no enforcement.

Right but then also no enforcement for those trying to prevent the freeware
style dealings of others with respect to their precious binaries.
>
> 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.

This bit is true. But without the corresponding ability to enforce
non-distribution of binaries how big of an issue would this be?

all the best,

drew
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
Received on Sun Jan 13 20:15:03 2013

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sun Jan 13 2013 - 20:15:04 EET