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RMS Previews GPL3 Terms
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent interview, ESR shocked a lot of people when he said,
'We don't need the GPL anymore.' Federico Biancuzzi contacted RMS, founder of the Free Software Movement and initial developer of the GNU system, to talk about the past, the present, and the future of the GNU GPL. Among other things, they discussed the new clauses of the upcoming GPL version 3."
...acknoledges the need for copyrights and/or IP laws. RMS is finally being consistent.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
What do you mean?
If you release a program that implements such a command, GPL 3 will require others to keep the command working in their modified versions of the program.
Isn't it a slippery road to go down when the license mandates a feature-set? It seems to make a mockery of the 'free to modify' mantra. In fact it seems to be 'not free' in that sense.
Nuff Said.
This new version, and later ones will confuse, fragment, and even make illegal many contributions and/or projects in the future. I think this will prove to be a weak link in Free Software as people try to mix GPL2 with GPL3 projects, and make a mess of things. Whatever benefits there are of GPL v3, they will be overshadowed by this mess it will create.
In a recent interview, Eric Raymond shocked many Free Software developers. Interviewed developers commented "What? Is he still around? Now there is someone you don't think about anymore." Raymond's contentious statements were uniformly viewed as desperate cries for attention by a once notable software developer. A sympathetic developer commented, "I certainly hope ESR gets the professional counciling he so obviously needs; he just needs to learn that you can lead a productive life outside the limelight. I know of a good support group for people like him and Dvorak."
Buy Text Processing in Python
RMS would've made a great Supreme Court justice, had he gotten his law degree
All developers and advocates of GPL software hereby agree to bathe on a minimum of a daily basis. Those developers that face the public further agree that they will brush their teeth priort to any such encounter, no matter how brief!
I could believe this part, especially coming from RMS. It's no wonder ESR said we didn't need the GPL anymore.
It's 2005, not 1985. We've learned a lot in the last 20 years.
Yeah we learned we need it more than ever before. Just imagine the SCO history without the GPL.
If you rigorously cling on to values (like GPL and free speech) people think you're a zealot. Until the same people realize they themselves were idiots. GPL is what got Linux this far -and not it's technical superiority over whatever- and it remains needed to prevent doctor evils screwing people over.
There's also the freedom to refrain from using the GPL and stop whining.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
This is about allowing people who release server software to mandate that any modified server running publicly will have to release the modified source code. That is the command he is talking about, and only that. Id hardly call that a feature set.
Seems a decent enough idea in this day and age, if everyone starts running thin clients with proprietary code on the servers then the GPL becomes a bit useless.
When did GNU release the GPL2?
Reading the license, you'd think that there could only be one way to read it or at least, it's so simple that there couldn't be much disagreement. And yet, a bunch of folks will have a bunch of different opinions about the meaning of the license. Human nature - I guess.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Just downloaded and installed the beta. Feels much snappier than the last release.
I'll keep you guys posted.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
At last someone on the GPL 3 team has said something that belays my fears about Services and the GPL version 3. The fear was that they would force you to give users access to GPLed code you use when you provide a service - for example forum software. From the article, they talk about developers including an ability to have the service software offer the sourcecode, and the GPL protecting this particular part of the program but not forcing developers to include it in the first place. While this does stop the fears that you would have to provide the sourcecode for every bit of GPL code you use in your service, it does open the door for limitations on modifications in GPLed programs, similiar to invariant sections in the Gnu Documentation License, and Im not decided if this is a good approach or not.
Federico Biancuzzi is just plainly incompetent on the subject of software licenses. See his old interview to RMS to see how often RMS must clarify basic issues to him, and misuderstands Biancuzzi's dumb questions. I'm not going to read TFA this time.
He *invented* open source software!
RMS has said that the real battle is non-free vs free not copyleft vs non-copyleft (aka BSD-style vs GPL).
Hey at least the man is consitent.
GPL is not needed, GUNS are enough -and required- to protect the interest of the shareholders^Wprogrammers.
At least the man can spell.
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The same old questions are obviously going to prompt the same old answers. List the questions in this interview that haven't been asked of RMS elsewhere.
Isn't the freedom to reuse the code one of the fundamental freedoms of the free software movement?
GPL3 seems to make it impossible for a GPL 2 project to take code from a GPL 3 project. Many GPL projects (e.g. the Linux Kernel) keep copyrights assigned to the person or company who contributed the patch, so the kernel will not be able to use GPL 3 code potentially without the permission of every contributor to the kernel.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Recognizing the need for the GPL acknowledges the need for copyrights and/or IP laws. RMS is finally being consistent.
RMS has always been very consistent on this point. In his view, copyright is a bad thing because it restricts freedom. He views the GPL as necessary because the bad thing exists, and has always described the GPL as a form of legal judo, fighting the enemy with his own strength.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
fragile. Maybe the GPL needs to be simpler, not more complex.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Try *reading* the GPL. Its pretty much as simple as could be. It's way simpler than Microsoft's EULAs for example, even though the GPL gives you some freedoms and the EULAs just restrict your rights.
What I would like to see in the next version of GPL is definition and terms of usage on when a program is linking to a GPL code and when it's using it as a service. In example if you use only MySQL, which is GPL, as database for you application, MySQL has defined this as linking, so making your own application also GPL. The thing goes complicated because developers of PostgreSQL haven't seen the matter as same. So in my intepretion I could use PostgreSQL as my database but not MySQL...
To clarify. If I would use MySQLs code or directly call it's classes then my application should be covered by GPL. But when I'm issuing SQL-commands via JDBC my application should not be covered by GPL. As a developer and a found of startup I would really like to have clarification to my issues...
P.S. In my case I solved the situation by making my application work with several different databases, that isn't linking anymore, it's using a services.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
Of course ESR doesn't think the GPL is necessary. I'm surprised he ever thought it was necessary, since it is a contract defining the terms of use of property, a concept he doesn't believe ought to apply to software. ESR's stance is anti-property, and what good is a contract about property when that code you just wrote doesn't belong to you?
Amazing magic tricks
WTF?
There are no moral authorities or absolutes. The only "right" comes from the ability to use force, deadly force if necessary, to get to your goal. That's what you open source hippies are not getting here.
I know the GLP having read it. I question why ver. 3 will actually help keep code freely available.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
The problem with GNU and the proposed GNU 3 is that is is getting more and more political, and more of the politics are getting further away from just Open Source. Things like preventing GNU software to use DRM, and certon rules on pattents. While we can debate these are things are good or evil, as for as I see it shouldn't matter if it is GNU or not, if this keeps on growing, then there will be restrictions on if we use the GNU program for warfare, or in a government that we don't like. Keep the GNU Simple that is the only way to keep GNU goodness, when you keep on adding restrictive clauses it will become more and more evil.
Yes people will use GNU software the way you didn't want them too. This is part of making a license.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In example if you use only MySQL, which is GPL, as database for you application, MySQL has defined this as linking, so making your own application also GPL. The thing goes complicated because developers of PostgreSQL haven't seen the matter as same. So in my intepretion I could use PostgreSQL as my database but not MySQL
I'm obviously not a lawyer, and I really haven't delved deeply into the GPL, but I instinctivly know that what you're suggesting is plain wrong.
The GPL says nothing about the data the program handles, either as a service or some file i/o or whatever. The scenario you're suggesting is highly analougous to the GPL on Apache meaning you can only host GPL'ed webpages and content, and can only serve webpages to GPL'ed browsers like firefox.
Defining sending requests to a service as linking to the program is a pretty far stretch by any definition. Again, if that's the case, every program I run is "linked" to my kernel, and any program that connects to a remote Apache server is also "linked" to it somehow.
OK, maybe the boys at MySQL have been spreading, intentionally or otherwise, little white lies about their licence. I doubt it, but even if they were, you can tell them to shove it. The GPL (currently) affects the source code only (as I shallowly understand it).
This is like those stories of lawyers who glance over the GPL and declare that any data outputted by it is automatically GPL'ed and must be shared. FUD! And people pay money for these guys!?
There's only one real restriction with GPL software. You are restricted from restricting access to the source code.
May the Maths Be with you!
GNU was always about the 'Free Software' ideal, NOT Open Source... get it right!
The GPL is an anchor of freedom. It has nothing to do with technical merits of ones software. It has everything to do with making software freely available and open in communal fashion. I'd like to think of the GPL as a digital library of function; with protection for not only the developer but the user. Similar to fountains of knowledge that have existed through out history allowing human-kind to prosper. It should be noted that all communes and libraries of the past that operated as a hub of knowledge have been almost entirely destroyed with few exceptions. I find it hard how one would do this with the digital medium but moving along.
ESR seemingly doesn't understand that if it was simply about technical merit and time. In another 20 years we'll look back and it'll be a different story. Isn't history one of ESR's strong points? Here is another reason why ESR can't be coined as a forefront in opensource or what we all deem to be some form of movement. His views are totally not inline with freedom and freedom is what this is about. You release under GPL as a form of solidarity? How about in the future you refrain from releasing under the GPL and release under the license that you think is best. Solidarity and cowardness go hand in hand when you're in the minority.
RMS on the other hand needs to learn that one can't force freedom. You can only protect it and the primary goal should be protection for the user and developer. The external parties should not matter beyond that. If they benefit in fashion from the GPL then one should not prevent that. This doesn't mean that the GPL should never change; I have faith that RMS will learn better to adapt the GPL to current environments as well as forseeing the road ahead.
None the less my personal views are that RMS is a leader and ESR as a mumbling imbecile and sideliner. As much as people dislike RMS and fight and rally against him. He never sidelines and he never stands in solidarity with a position he disagrees with. He stands firmly in his belief for freedom and provided the framework on which I make my living, how I learned to make my living and how I even enjoy myself every now and then.
So, unlike the rest of you; after I pickup my girl from the airport i'll have a beer in the name of RMS. Cheers; and thanks.
I was planning on getting a Treo and setting it up with a Socket Communications barcode reader to explore that kind of functionality in a PDA. I hope they don't outright kill the Palm OS on their devices but rather carry both. I'd like to have an alternative to Microsoft when trying out those kinds of device setups. I keep coming across hardware I want that only works with Windows, like mobile phones and sheet-feed scanners, and it is frustrating.
Years ago, I had a top-of-the-range Toshiba laptop that came with Windows 95. When I upgraded to Windows 98, all of a sudden, the power management got all screwed up. To turn the machine off, I had to Shutdown, wait for it to hang, unplug the AC power adaptor, and pull out the battery. This was extremely frustrating, considering it wasn't exactly an obscure brand that was unsupported. Because of those kinds of experiences, I would really like to use another company's product.
Yes, there were things about their products that I did like. Despite the major security problems that came with it, I did like the whole COM thing from a development perspective. Being able to use the same controls in Access, Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Internet Explorer did have a nice consistency. And I don't recall having problems with my Palm on Windows the way I do now on OS X. If anything happened to your computer, all your PIM data was backed up on the Palm, so all you had to do was re-install the system and hit a button to restore it on the computer. But on OS X, I've had the computer wipe the data from my Palm when I did clean OS upgrades. They also managed to include programs along with their main products that helped you do more, like a graphics application that came with Office which was useful for web design. On the Macintosh, it seems like it costs much more to do really basic web design compared to Windows.
But that power management thing was really a bitch to deal with. I couldn't believe that any company would be so incompetent as to cripple a computers ability to simply turn off. The security problems were also unbearable. Allowing remote code to install itself on your computer automatically was just pure brainlessness. I can recall that there was an exploit in which an attachment could open itself up automatically in the preview pane in Outlook Express, and I had read about it as a proof-of-concept security hole possibly a year or two before virus writers actually started using it. The fact that a company would allow a common-knowledge exploit to go unpatched for so long was ridiculous. I've seen friends who's jobs depended on their computers lose all their data because of exploits like that.
So in the end, I opted for a more expensive computer setup that had less third-party hardware support, but could turn on and off like a television and actually allow me to do other things instead of having to constantly patch and implement work-arounds for newly discovered exploits. I got a computer I could use rather than one I had to maintain. Maybe things have been different since, but I think that it is just a fundamental issue that consumers have alternatives when piecing together computer systems.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Last time I checked, Firefox was under the MPL, not the GPL.
I have a question for anyone who is familiar with TC/DRM.
In the article, RMS calls these "Treacherous Computing/Digital Restrictions Management. Is it possible that he being one sided and a luddite by implying that the technology can only be used for evil? This goes against my normal assumptions about technology. While I agree about the dangers of its proposed use, it seems rare that a particular technology is inherently evil, and even when a technology is mostly being misused, I usually don't propose avoiding it, but restricting its bad uses.
For me, an example of a technology that's inherently evil is bio-warfare. One that's neutral but widely abused is genetic engineering. Restating my question, RMS seems to put TC/DRM in the first category, while I suspect it really belongs in the second. I can imagine the *possibility* of cases where TC/DRM could be beneficial, e.g. to protect privacy or security of data, but I don't know if such beneficial uses are actually possible. I would appreciate some informed opinions or pointers to sources that deal with this issue.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Eric is right. He doesn't need the GPL because the GPL is for people who actually write code.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This is just a variation on the requirement that source always be available. Nothing new here. (GPL has always required certain trivial "features" such as displaying the license and the no-warranty clause.)
you had me at #!
Too bad his followers don't know that.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
1. Moral relativism ends when it comes to moral relativism compared to anything else. Moral relativism isn't subject to itself, at least in practice.
2. The 100 record executives have support of the government, which has massive firepower. The people unfortunately don't.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
In that case, companies would ultimately screw everyone over by exploiting their code. Just look at FreeBSD for example.
I don't see Microsoft rushing to contribute back to the TCP/IP stack they used under the BSD license. I'm not convinced that IBM would be so keen to contribute work that could be used to build proprietary products by their competitors.
And FreeBSD isn't Linux in terms of success.
However, in spite of your efforts to portray it otherwise, this wasn't an anti-BSD rant....
I'm sure there's an example out there of the utter anguish and despair that would happen if the GPL were more free.
Strawman hysterics #1. I never said there would be utter anguish and despair. In fact I said, "Actually, I'll admit there are places where one might consider releasing stuff under a BSD-like license; but it should be the author's choice. Not theirs."
I personally don't believe that BSD is as conducive to giving-back as the GPL, but there are places that it may worth using.
What I would object to is producing work and letting people use it for free under certain conditions, then having someone else able to exploit this without giving back *because the license was changed*.
If I wanted a BSD license, I'd have used that in the first place.
But you are in essence correct. Freedom is too valuable to give to everyone. We need to lock it away so only we can have it.
Complete and utter strawman bull #2. You should get this one together with #1 and they could start a family.
Where did I say this had *anything* to do with "freedom"? Where did I say (or imply) that it should be "locked away"? This doesn't even bear any relation to what I was saying now; it's blatant misrepresentation.
For what it's worth, I didn't promote the GPL as providing more "freedom". BSD-style licenses obviously provide far more freedom for the original code; what they don't do is extend any significant freedom for derivative works. GPL restricts certain freedoms on the original code in exchange for the preservation of freedoms on derivative works.
If I choose to write something, and release it under a particular license, no-one is forcing anyone else to use it. They can write their own and release it under a different license.
If you think I should be denied the freedom to place restrictions on what's done with my code, then you have to extend the same lack of restrictions to derivative works, so that anyone (including me) can do what the heck we like with them. The problem with BSD is that it doesn't stop other people's (default) right to impose restrictions on derivative code.
If everyone else has the right to carry a sword, I certainly expect the right to carry one too. So, either I have the right to GPL my code without anyone complaining, or if I have to release my code without restrictions, no-one else should be allowed to restrict their derivative works either.
Anyhow, I'm not against proprietery software, or BSD. I do expect the right to choose if everyone else does.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Subject basically says it all. The so-called "Trusted Computing Platform" involves nothing more than having public-key encryption implemented in hardware, under the control of the BIOS. It can (in theory) be used for DRM, but can also be used merely to enhance the security of your system. The so-called "vendor key" may not have any practical, non-evil uses, but nobody is forcing you to use it. Personally, I'd like to have a system with TC hardware. (As long as any "remote control" functionality can be disabled, which, I suspect, would be hard NOT to arrange.)
DRM, on the other hand, is pretty much an unmitigated evil. However, that said, I think the approach taken by the GFDL is the wrong one. I'd prefer to see distribution on DRM-controlled platforms allowed as long as unrestricted versions are available to anyone who gets a DRM'd copy. In other words, I'd like to see DRM treated by documentation licenses more-or-less the way binaries are treated by the GPL.
does it run on GLAMP?
Oh well, what the hell...
or did it seem like (to those of you who actually READ TFA) that this wasn't really a preview at all? For the majority of the new features and differences between V2 and V3, RMS answered to the effect of 'well, if we can find a way to do that' or 'well we're not done studying the issue'. I understand the word preview, but I didn't get the feeling from the interview that there definitely ARE any significant changes from v2 yet.
v2sw7CUPhw5ln6pr5Pck4ma7u7LFw0m6g/l7Di5e6t5Ab6TH.
Does anybody know who is ESR?
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Man, you have some issues.. hope you get those worked out.
Actually, ESR never said he "invented" open source software.
He actually said that he "took the initiative to create" open source software.
This is a novel and reasonable answer to the question of how to handle GPL in web based applications... it should make A LOT of business users happy.. It's the one question I've been holding out on "evangalizing" OSS to my bosses. What this will allow is a "download source" feature to be included in your GPL'd programs [like in Help or About] and part of the license will be that future people can't remove it. This is a good thing.
It's a bit of an intrusive thing, but at least in the case RMS used in the article, the maintainer of the site would be able to control the version they put up. A company may want to strip important data from the files or protect trademarks/config files ... any hardcoded passwords or other sensitive info... but most web programs are alredy pretty good about data seperation. You can point management to this requirement [rather than just ignore it and hope nobody notices] then get their support for what should be downloaded. In the legal aspet this fixes a big, gaping hole. It takes a lot of the "pain" of liability because if you tried to comply to the requirement. The FSF would be more than willing to send somebody over privately if the app was particularly sensitive [say hacking or IP issues] where to put stuff you LEGALLY need to be private versus you not posting anything at all.
At least this will provide a "positive" guidance and a legal opinion rather than mearly the opinions of slashdotters on a very important OSS legal issue!!!
If you change the PHP that creates the web page, did you distribute a copy of that file? To date, the issue hasn't been answered well. Judging from normal copyright cases, you may be held as infringing for distributing the script... like it or not doesn't matter, the courts have already decided in favor of copyright owners. [example: if you got CNNs source for their site, you'd be sued in a hot minute!]
I do see your point, if I break MS rules and have 100 copies of server 2003 when I only paid for one, they can nail me for lots of money, but don't have any right to the information or content of those machines.
So far this looks like an optional requirement. If I put a link to source in my "ABOUT" screen that provides the source code, that feature must be reproduced in any successive version. [much like invariant sections in GFDL documentation] I don't think it's entirely enforceable on it's own, you may be right, but legally is is REASONABLE. In other words, part of the license that grants you the right to modify the code asks you to respect this provision. If you don't want to respect it, don't use it. And again, it only applies in the narrow case where you modify the code. If you just set up a vanilla version from sourceforge, providing a link back or hosting the file you downloaded would fufill the requirements well enough. I suppose with something like the Linux(TM) kernel you might need a command line option to display the "about" information.. but you can't remove the feature from your binary distribution. Legally, thought it's a fair request.
I happen to agree with you, but saying that sort of stuff here is like going to the Bronx and shouting "I hate n*ggas" or yelling out "Sieg Heil" in a synagoge.
Remember, slashdot is all about preserving freedom in all its forms at all costs, so that sort of language will absolutely not be tolerated from the likes of you.
You don't really have to write software in the GPL. Right?
If there were no copyright laws
Then you'd be Free to reverse-engineer a proprietary program and publish a commented disassembly and translation into the HLL of your choice.
ESR's position against Free Software has always seemed slightly irrational (or at least unjustified) to me, but I always put it down to no more than him trying to get some more limelight for his Open Software efforts. That would be unfortunate, but no biggie.
But now that he has publicly gone anti-GPL by saying that it is no longer needed, I think that ESR is finally showing his true colours.
In a world where Free+Open Software ruled the roost (we're not quite there yet), the only people for whom the GPL might no longer be needed are those people who have an army of paid-up lawyers behind them, in other words, the corporations. Everyone else would get screwed by the first well-financed litigious bloodsucker that comes along and markets the software without respecting its authors' desired freedoms.
So, it's pretty simple: ESR is pro-business, and actively desires individuals to be powerless and trodden underfoot in the corporate rush for profits.
That's pretty bad, not far off from being "evil". I must say, I didn't really expect that from ESR.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
But neither are they preventing anyone from using the BSD licensed TCP/IP stack. One of the more popular arguments against the BSD license is that it's "a license to steal."
Yes, but that's not my argument against it.
You've already put words in my mouth on two occasions. Now you're trying to bring someone else's argument (which I don't endorse) into your discussion of what I said.
I've read discussion here along the lines of "Microsoft are evil!!!! They're stealing BSD code and not giving anything back". They're not stealing. They're simply doing what the BSD license lets them do, and if the authors of the code didn't like it, they wouldn't (or shouldn't) have released it under the BSD license.
I wouldn't use the word "stealing"; I *might* (in some cases) use the word exploitation; but that having been said, it's debatable if it's exploitation when someone knowingly releases code under such an unrestrictive license and someone doesn't "give back".
However, I would not (and never have) called it stealing.
But nothing has been stolen! I still have my copy safe and sound!
Absolutely, and I didn't say otherwise.
What it *is*, is (with the permission of the authors), a license to use free- possibly unpaid- work to build a proprietary product on, without necessarily putting any significant extra effort into it.
As I said, choice of the authors. If they don't mind their work being used in this way, fine. If they're relying on companies "giving back" and they don't..... well, it was their choice to license it that way.
No, but Apache is. It's hugely successful in comparison to Linux (or IIS). Yet it's under a BSD-style license. Microsoft hasn't stolen it, nobody has stolen it.
Stolen, stolen, stolen. Not my words, not my argument, and I'm not going to get into a discussion over something I never said.
You're right that Apache (under a BSD *style* license; sorry, I'm not 100% au fait with the differences) has been very successful, and this seems like a good case for a BSD-style license (as I already said, I'm not rabidly anti-BSD or pro-GPL).
Successful though it is, Apache is one product, and it seems that the GPL is more popular in general; at any rate, would commercial companies be less likely to contribute under the GPL? I don't think so; is Apache popular and well-supported because, or *in spite of* its license?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself.
How about the circumstance in which all kernels except the one approved by your ISP will fail to get an IP address?
And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine.
Try telling that to anybody who has tried to crack the most recent DirecTV access cards.
In my view, freedom *is* an absolute...it's only that two diametrically opposed absolutes cancel eachother out. ;-)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
We might be misunderstanding eachother.
;-)
"Copyright doesn't put things into the public domain, it takes things out of it."
I wasn't arguing that copyright on itself was created to make sure it came into the public domain (obviously, if copyright didn't exist, everything would be in the public domain), I was arguing that the fact they made it for *a limited time* was meant to make sure it came into the public domain.
"First of all, it's not my argument."
I understand. If I use "you", it's never you personal, rather 'you' as the 'other party' within a diametrically oposed argument or viewpoint (even if that's only in appearance).
"In the first, you're using it to modify the length of time of the copyright. In the second, you're using it to modify the amount of "scientific progress". "
Well, could be I didn't explain it too well; I'm not native english. I would say the 'amount of scientific progress' you claim I was making could be viewed as such, if one agrees that the longer scientific progress is stimulated (aparently by copyright, when following the reasoning), the longer that progress can continue, and thus the more progress will be made. Viewed in that light, it doesn't seem an unreasonable claim to be made. (And, in effect, many IP-proponents claims just that).
" So why have copyright at all?"
Well, indeed, why?
Sometimes it is impossible to know. And sometimes it is. Why does Disney&co want to extend their copyrights always further? Because every company wants a monopoly, because a monopoly is a cash-cow. Nervermind that they wouldn't have gotten where they are today, if they had had unlimited copyrights when the brothers Grimm lived. So, it's rather ironic: they try to abolish that (=the limited time-restriction), which made them great in the the first place.
But such is the power of money.
I guess when the Founding Fathers did what they did, some of them may be lobbied, and/or some thought it was more fair for the authors, and/or some actually believed that it would stimulate progres or new works if authors had a limited monopoly, etc.
"So, by your argument, if copyright were indefinite, all scientific progress would cease?"
Copyright is not the only IP-law, and even not the most dangerous one (patents beat that easily). But, rest assured, I remain consistent. So, yes, my argument is, if *all* IP-rights would remain valid *indefinately* (and they are rigorously pursued in the legal arena), then, ultimately, scientific progress would stop.
"But then again, what was the average lifespan 200 years ago?"
Whatever it was, in comparison with the current lifespan it wouldn't amount to 'death of the author +50 years', now, would it?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
oh dear, did someone forget to take their medication today?