Stallman Says Pirate Party Hurts Free Software

bonch writes "Richard Stallman has written an article on the GNU Web site describing the effect the Swedish Pirate Party's platform would have on the free software movement. While he supports general changes to copyright law, he makes a point that many anti-copyright proponents don't realize — the GPL itself is a copyright license that relies on copyright law to protect access to source code. According to Stallman, the Pirate Party's proposal of a five-year limit on copyright would remove the freedom users have to gain access to source code by eventually allowing its inclusion in proprietary products. Stallman suggests requiring proprietary software to also release its code within five years to even the balance of power."

Comments

Lessig Already Proposed this

[Reverend528]

I'm pretty sure Lessig already proposed this 5 years ago. Both ideas of short copyright and a requirement that the source code should be released for copyright to be valid.

Re:Lessig Already Proposed this

[jwthompson2]

The second session of the United States Congress established 14 year Copyright terms with an optional 14 year renewal. Going back to that and requiring publication for application of Copyright would be a good step.

Re:Correction

[recoiledsnake]

If you ever understood why Richard Stallman takes exactly the stance he takes, you would never make so a silly statement.

Richard Stallman saw his own code he wrote for his own projects incorporated in a commercial product and got forbidden to ever reuse or publish his own code. And thus because the company in question had a license in place that basicly made all changes and extension to the code base the property of the company.

So Richard Stallman sought a way to make such a code grap impossible by design - by inventing a license that removes all your rights to all the code you were given the moment you try to shield it from other people.

So when Richard Stallman says that the GPL-type licenses are here not only to open source, but to keep the software actually free, then he has a point.

If you because of your limited experience don't see the point, it's not Richard Stallman's fault.

WRONG. No company stole his code. Stop making shit up and then accusing others of being of 'limited experience'. Good job on gaming Slashdot to get +4 insightful though. It's so easy, just write what they want to hear. The real reason Stallman did what he did: From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html

The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software would immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation. Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed. The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed.

Re:Correction

[multisync]

Right, so now I am an MS troll

Actually, what I said was "assuming you are not just trolling on behalf of Microsoft" I would like a response. In other words, if you are simply trolling, don't bother. Thanks for giving me one.

What DOES bother me is when either of them are striving to extend their political influence

How is he striving to extend his political influence? By advocating free software? There is a pretty long list of parties who are exerting real influence on politicians. Stallman is simply doing what every company does when they bring a product to market. If you honestly believe that Steve Ballmer wouldn't like every computer to run Windows, and isn't striving to extend his political influence to achieve that goal, then I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

He demands 100% compliance with his growing list of restrictions, or you aren't free

"Growing list of restriction?" A quick glance at the "What is free software?" page covers the same ground it always has, as far as I can tell. I won't recite the four software freedoms, but they are the only "restrictions" I know of that bind developers who license their software under the GPL. What do you mean by a "growing list?" Can you provide more information please?

Freedom is not a list of restrictions

Neither is the GPL. It enumerates the qualities that the FSF believes software (or more accurately its license) must possess for them to consider it "free." It's no different than me saying without self-determination I am not free. If you want to see that as me placing a "restriction on freedom" that's your business, but I don't see how you can define something without identifying the qualities it possesses.

In reality, he wants to remove rights, give you a list of restrictions, and do so to protect the interests of developers, protecting their code from being stolen."

Wow, I don't even know where to begin with that. Let me give you my take:

He wants to extend rights, define the qualities that make software free and do so to protect the interest of users, protecting them from being subjected to the will of developers. At least that's what I get from "the freedom to run the program, to study how it works, to share it with others and to make improvements to it." (sorry, I know I said I wouldn't recite the list, but I felt it was necessary to make my point).

You are most certainly entitled to disagree with Stallman, to think the GPL is BS and to voice your opinion to anyone who will listen. I'm not questioning that. But you haven't done much to convince me Stallman is restricting anyone's rights. If you write code, don't license it under the GPL if it offends you. If you simply use software, then you can happily ignore the GPL altogether, since (unlike every EULA I've ever read) it places no restrictions on the user.