Fw: Query about GNU-GPL

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > And you didn't loose the source code, hence no theft.  What part
   > of this do you not grasp?

   You lose the money that you would have earned if someone else
   hadn't stolen your code and sold it instead of you.

Irrelevant.

   >    There is a very simple formula for determining whether a moral
   >    crime has been committed - was there a victim? If there was,
   >    it was a moral crime.
   > 
   > And this isn't the "formula" that is used in either law or in
   > common sense.

   <offtopic> It's a good guiding principle, and one that should be
   more often applied everywhere - then we wouldn't have some of our
   stupid & doomed laws. </offtopic>

It is not a good guiding principle simple because it is totally wrong,
theft is the loose of property, nothing else.

   >    You can't surely disagree with this as it's also the basis of
   >    the GPL - everyone donates their work if others do the same.
   > 
   > Actually, I can disagree with this since it is completely bogus.
   > This isn't the basis of the GPL, the only basis the GPL has it to
   > protect the _users_ freedom.

   The GPL equates users with programmers as with source access all
   users can become programmers. Hence my statement stands - under the
   GPL, everyone donates their work if others do the same.

No it doesn't, since it isn't the basis for the GPL.

   Creating music requires money,

Go listen to some folk music.

   and doesn't generate much in return naturally (it's why there were
   so few full-time musicians a hundred years ago).

Go to a pub a few hundred years ago, music has always existed in many
forms, and there have always been many "full-time" muscicians.  It is
part of human nature to produce and listen to music.

Music has long enjoyed the same freedoms that free software has, and
the freedoms that the GPL protects.

   At the very least, it costs what the artist would earn working in a
   field or factory for the same period of time and people naturally
   don't donate much to musicians unless they are very, very good.

Or they enjoy it enough to do it for the joy of it.  Money isn't the
means to an end you know, not everything that one does must circulate
around the idea to make lots of money.

   Similarly, writing a book requires even more money and generates
   even less naturally. Before the printing press, it took people
   years to duplicate books and there was virtually no return on
   investment, hence mostly only monks did it.

The only reason why monks did it was because they were taught to read
and write, not because it took a long time or cost alot.

   Lastly, a movie requires even way more money again (now you have
   dozens of professionals to pay over weeks or months) and generates
   even less again (as a proportion of its costs) than books or music
   if it weren't for the rule of law and hitherto hegemony of the US
   movie studios.

I suggest that you look at a nice small local film festival, movies do
not require mountains of cash, or a dozen of "professionals".

   The prevalence of each form decreases under the GPL in reverse
   order - so if you GPLed a movie, it would never get made.

Do you have anything to backup this claim?

   If you GPLed a book, anything more than a short one would never get
   made and besides, too many cooks spoil the broth.

Many GNU books were released under the GPL initally, and they were
printed, so there goes that claim.

   You may have some luck with music that doesn't require mixing and
   mastering, but again they're all loss making ventures.

Go listen to some folk music.

   Compare to GPLed software - here releasing your software to the
   wild /makes/ /you/ /money/ because you outsource development &
   debugging costs.

It doesn't make me money, and it isn't why I release my code under the
GPL either.

   Everyone benefits.

Everyone only benefits if they have the right to use, modify and
distribute the code.

   You'll eventually dismiss me after I unsettle you and you get bored
   of me, deciding I am a crackpot and go on believing what you do.

No, the reason why I would dismiss you is because of your constant
lies, name calling and hostile tone in your messages.

You obviously have been brainwashed to consider money the only
important thing in the world, more important then freedom, fun and
usefulness.  Greed, the lust for more money, is what makes this world
such a sad place to live in.