You Can Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source

kfogel writes "I'm submitting 'Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright' as a response to Greg Bulmash's piece from yesterday. I think there were a number of flaws and mistaken assumptions in Bulmash's reasoning, and I've tried to address them in this rebuttal, which has undergone review from some colleagues in the copyright-reform community."

Comments

obviously wrong.

[twitter]

Without specific protection for the software component, companies would have tied software to the hardware. ... You can copy the Microsoft Office ROMS all you want, but it uses the registers and I/O devices only present on the patented Microsoft Office machine. No *general purpose* computers... Copyright is what made the general purpose computer sociologically possible. That world, by the way, would suck.

That's so backward - general purpose computers are more valuable without copy restrictions than they are with them. There are plenty of patents on them but no computer maker would ever limit the use of their hardware with those patents. Copy restrictions are responsible for the dominance of Intel i386 and all companies have twisted their hardware to work with M$ junk and is close to the M$ Office machine you mention. Useful hardware like PowerPC and other general purpose hardware is not available for home normal use. In a world without copyright, one where Bill Gates was stoned to death at an early hacker meeting, M$ would never have existed much less made hardware even suckier than it is today.