[nzlug] Re: M$ is targeting YOU

[Simon Bridge]

On Fri, 2007-03-30 at 12:42 +1200, Robin Sheat wrote:
> On Friday 30 March 2007 12:19:25 Simon Bridge wrote:
> > Dear me, how *did* people produce such great creative works for all
> > those centuries in the absence of copy*right* law?
> That's exactly my point (which wasn't iterated very well previously, I was 
> tired and should know better about writing emails like that:). If copyright 
> didn't exist, the default situation would be very similar to one that the GPL 
> fosters now within the bounds of copyright.
> 
mis-articulation has been a feature of this thread.

> Basically, if we didn't have copyright, we wouldn't need the GPL (and, of 
> course, it wouldn't be able to function, but that would be OK). If copyright 
> didn't exist, everyone would be working in a GPL-like environment anyway.
> 
This is fine - the GPL as it is written now could not exist. But it
would still be possible to spell out agreements in its spirit without
copyright law. You would still need something like it otherwise people
would have de-facto permission to take what code they want without
sharing.

I could say, "I will make a great sculpture for you so long as you
display it to the public and allow other artists to copy it."

>  I just think words, definitions and 
> use are important (c.f. Sapir-Worf hypothesis, weak form :)
... and you are doing this in the English language too... that's very
brave of you.