Don't expect any patches from the students in Bolzano

Don't expect any patches from the students in Bolzano

Posted Feb 4, 2006 10:34 UTC (Sat) by evgeny (guest, #774)
In reply to: Don't expect any patches from the students in Bolzano by giraffedata
Parent article: Linux in Italian schools - five months later

> If there were no copyright, there would be no license.

This is true, but compare e.g. the MS EULA.txt with the couple of standard copyright protection lines found in any book.

> I don't quite follow, but if you're saying it's morally wrong to equate such a copying action with a conventional theft, then I agree. The law doesn't do so, by the way -- except in the most abstract sense where every legal right is a property right.

IANAL, of course, but the general perception in public is certainly like software piracy == theft. Just google for "stolen sotware" and "illegally copied software" and compare the hit counts. Also, the notion is widely spread in all kinds of homebrew "explanations" of software fair use, e.g. see http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/ethics.html ("... illegally copied software is viewed as stolen property"). I had to sign a very similar form myself in the past.

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