Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)

Rob Thorpe wrote
(in article
<1125429596.199157.6770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

>> And there is no concept of a saxophone reed in software
>> developemnt, but that is irrelevant. What is common is the idea
>> of work product.
>
> Exactly, in the other professions mentioned it's the work product that
> copyright is applied to. In programming source code is the product the
> programmer produces. However, it's something completely different,
> object code, that the copyright is applied to.

Oh come on. A compiler and linker is just as much a tool to
produce object code as a hammer or saw is to a cabinet maker.
The source code isn't what most programmers are paid for, they
are paid for the finished product.

>> Not to mention the more general 'trade
>> secrets' that allow companies (of any kind) to protect their
>> work, such as pharmaceutical companies, 3M to protect the
>> formula for the famously bad glue responsible for sticky notes,
>> or even for McDonald's to pretend that 'secret sauce' isn't
>> really watered down Thousand Island dressing.
>
> I don't think that something that could be changed, it would be an
> unnecessary imposition on peoples freedom to limit their ability to
> keep secrets.

But somehow, that only applies to everyone /other/ than those
wishing to keep source code secret?

> What I object to is people try to impose copyright on
> the output of a *compiler* that they don't even understand.

I don't follow you.

>>> An author, musician or architect can't hide how their
>>> creations actually work,
>>
>> Sure they can. does a guitarist /have/ to tell you what sort of
>> home grown effect he built in his garage for that really cool
>> sounding 3rd track on his debut CD? No.
>
> It's not hard to make a similar sound. There are very few really
> difficult things to reverse engineer.

Which is why we have copyright protections and patents. I will
readily admit that there are a bunch of completely frivolous
patents out there, but there are also some genuinely cool,
innovative, non-obvious inventions too. Just because a patent
office suffers from cranial inversion doesn't mean those people
should be punished through some form of guilt by association.
Should you be able to patent a GUI for manipulating hierarchical
data? I don't think so, yet they get issues all the time. If
however, someone invents an actual working holodeck though, they
probably deserve some protection against it being ripped off by
some marketing dweeb with the money to pull it off, but not the
technical ability to do it on his/her own.

>> It's not incomprehensible to someone sufficiently skilled.
>> Analyzing modern art and finding meaning in it is as opaque to
>> me as reading even the source code, much less the binary of a
>> large software project is to a performance artist.
>
> That's completely irrelevant, you're not an artist. It's not that
> important that things be understandable to those outside the field,
> since they couldn't possibly build on them. The problem is could an
> artist analyze a peice of modern art?

That would be a funny experiment. Find 100 artists, get 100
different opinions. :-)

> Ideas are the medium modern
> artists work in. It's also one of the mediums programmers work in, but
> the main one is source code - not object code.

Artists work in clay, or wood, or pastels. They sell statues,
carvings and paintings though. Get it?

>> I have talked to plenty of
>> artists (and especially architects) that firmly believe they
>> could improve on famous products in their field,
>
> Yes, but do they actually want to? Probably not, direct derivation is
> not the province of art. Artist aim to put their own stamp on what
> they do.
>
> Programming is different, the intention is only to make something that
> works.

If that were completely true, there would be a lot less broken
software out there.

> Even if an artist wants to steal from someone else they're quite able
> to steal the overall structure. Many writers have written books
> deriving plots from others. Many painters have gleaned insight into
> techniques by examining the work of others. Why do programmers not
> have the same right?

You are arguing that programmers should have a right to
plagiarism. Stunning.

Since it is easier to steal a plot from a book than to steal a
function from a piece of hidden source code, you think there is
a problem?

Why should a programmer have a right to use source that I spent
weeks or months working on, just so he can feel he has it as
easy as an author too lazy to dream up his own murder plot line?
>> just as
>> software developers often claim they could make software work
>> better if they just had access to the source. Some are right,
>> some are full of crap, it's true in every profession where you
>> find opinionated people.
>
> It would hardly break any artistic vision to let them try though.

It would however, be totally unfair to the original author,
unless that person /wanted/ to give it up for such acts. You
might as well demand that chemists give up their formulas for
snake oil, so that other snake oil companies won't have to start
from scratch. What rational basis is there for this need to
make others have it easier off the fruit of others' labor?

>> They don't have to buy his software. The fundamental problem is
>> the consumer herd mentality, not the law. If consumers only
>> were willing to pay for quality, and actively boycotted bad
>> software, bill gates would not be a billionaire today. He'd
>> probably be selling used cars.
>
> Probably not. Software is dominated by issues of compatability. So
> long as companies can hide behind copyright law the important
> interchange formats will remain proprietry.

Strange, Office is going XML reportedly, despite still retaining
copyright protection on their software. How can that be?

> Whoever controls those
> formats will control a large amount of the software landscape, once it
> was IBM, now it's Microsoft, it may be someone else in ten years time.

It is anyone's right to sell a product, without giving away all
the implementation details. It is your right as a consumer to
refuse to buy it if you don't like it. If you choose to buy it
though, then you have no complaint.

> Regardless of who it is they will be mediocre because they won't have
> to try.

That doesn't make any sense at all to me. try again?




--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)

.

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