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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."
Some people define "Free Software" as "Free as in beer." Others define it as "Free as in speech." Stallman defines it "Free as in 'Do as I say or else!'"
Stallman and Gates are two sides of the same coin.
Watch me burn some karma here, but this is the truth.
Stallman has contributed greatly over the years to free software. You can't change that. I appreciate his contributions.
But Stallman is a zealot who hurts the image of free software, making it difficult to sell the concept of free software to suits. He goes after Linus, Mozilla and Google, never realizing who his friends are in the FOSS world. He demands 100% compliance with his growing list of restrictions, or you aren't free.
Freedom is not a list of restrictions. 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. He considers this very important to him.
How is this really different from DRM? DRM restricts users to protect the developer/artist from having their property stolen.
Except RMS claims DRM is evil, and the GPL to be some holy mandate.
True freedom is public domain. Public domain certainly doesn't protect your code from being copied or stolen. Each developer has to make the decision themselves how to restrict usage of their creation. RMS can't claim that his list of restrictions is the only acceptable set of restrictions.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Shouldn't he pay more attention to his operating system, and not TPB?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
50 years? While I can possibly see argument (agreement aside) for a 50 year window on copyrighted creative works like Mickey Mouse, I definitely cannot see 50 years as an acceptable window for copyright protection of code. That would mean it would only now allow us to open and use code written in 1949. Personally - I would suggest that copyright protection would be acceptable for "twice as long as it took you to create it, all told" - if you spent 3 years from concept/analysis to final product, then you get 6 years of profit protection for your effort. If it only took you 2 months to come up with, you only get 4 months protection. Of course, that's nearly un-enforcable and way too complicated.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
Wow, I got a Troll for this? Ha. Moderation fail. :P
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
Thank heavens you posted as anonymous coward, that assuages any fears I may have had that you could be entirely making this shit up.