Copyright [LWN.net]

Copyright

Posted Dec 12, 2008 3:27 UTC (Fri) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
In reply to: Copyright by dlang
Parent article: Free Software Foundation files suit against Cisco for GPL violations

many people do believe that the code they write should be able to be used by anyone for any purpose, those people select BSD licenses.

That is simply not true. Please explain how I can legally use BSD code after it is compiled and included in some proprietary binary? - I can't. You did say anyone, not just the first person to receive the code.

other people believe that other people should be able to use the software they write, but only if you share your changes.

Many people believe that this requirement is only an ethical requirement to help counteract the evil of copyright. If this were the only thing that copyright provided, I certainly would deem it unethical. It is only because of copyright that the restrictions that the GPL imposes are honorable. It's a little like Robin Hood stealing from the rich, we honor it because he is presumably stealing back what was stolen from the poor in the first place. If the rich however acquired their loot ethically his actions would be dispecable.

if you eliminated copyright entirely it would be like making everything be under the BSD license (you may be able to copy something without violating copyright, but if the source isn't published you can't get at it to copy it)

No, not at all. Without copyright all code would be much closer to the GPL. As mentioned above, with BSD code I may be prohibited from using your code if it is relabeled proprietary. This cannot happen to any code without copyright. The worst that can happen without copyright is code obfuscation and tivoization, but there would be no legal barriers!!! As mentioned in my parent post, this would just lead to better tools to deal with obfuscation and tivoization making the code effectively GPL. I did forget about tivoization in my parent post, but that is only a GPL3 protection.

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Dec 12, 2008 11:13 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

Imagine there's no Cisco, it's easy if you try
No RMS behind us, above us only Skype
Imagine all the people
Abandoning copyright

You may say you don't need it
And you're not the only one
I really hope someday some anarchist will write something non-copyrighted but intelligent and immensely popular and widespread about peace, love, tivoization and tolerance like the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta or a great recipe for chicken tikka or maybe some kernel driver
And the world will live as one

Posted Dec 12, 2008 17:49 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

"That is simply not true. Please explain how I can legally use BSD code after it is compiled and included in some proprietary binary? - I can't. You did say anyone, not just the first person to receive the code."

Presumably, you can get a copy from wherever the author of the proprietary program did. You have to distinguish between "the code" (the thing the original author wrote and licensed) and "a particular copy or derivative of the code" (which may or may not be available or visible to you).