GPL and Moral Rights

[Alex Hudson]

On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 11:27, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> I think it's different. From what I heard no moral rights are involved
> (actually, if any, moral rights of the author is about publishing again
> and again).

Indeed. Thinking about it, I guess I agree with you - although, I didn't
realise Mein Kampf was some "banned" book (www.hitler.org, for example,
seems to have a complete copy). However, as it was authored in 1925 (I
think?) I would be guessing copyright doesn't have much say in the
matter any more. 

Moral rights in this instance are an interesting side issue, but I don't
think they're really much of an issue. The case of copyright transferral
while the author lives is much more the real issue.

> There are rumors around about very innovative patents that have been
> bought exactly _not_ to industrially implement it, just like a company
> can buy a competitor to shut it up.

Oh, there are many stories like that - not just patents, any kind of
rights. DeBeers are well known for crushing competition, although the
recent articles in Wired about industrial diamond creation en masse are
extremely interesting (many see diamond as the next step after silicon
within the computing industry, mainly because you can run it much hotter
- it can survive temperatures that would melt silicon and still
function, all the better for making Athlons out of ;).

Cheers,

Alex.