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

Correction

[Jack9]

Stallman Says Pirate Party Hurts HIS VERSION OF Free Software

FTFY

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.

subject

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, merely reducing copyright to 40 years from creation would be a MASSIVE step in the right direction.

Release later?

[Tubal-Cain]

Stallman suggests requiring proprietary software to also release its code within five years to even the balance of power.

Why not require the source code to be submitted with the copyright registration?

Re:Release later?

[mrvan]

This actually makes a lot of sense.

In the original purpose of copyright law - books and other written material - there is no source code other than the thing that is distributed.

In a sense, companies like MS use copyright not to be a sole distributer of the copyrighted material (the source code), but to prevent all distribution of said material. By withholding the "manuscript", we ("the people") are granting a temporary monopoly on something we don't even really know what it is.

Computer programs are quite different from the creative works copyright was intended for, and also quite different from the "machines" and "inventions" patents were intended for. By trying to apply legislation to something quite different than what it was meant for we are creating a lot of problems, including overly broad patents, copyright monopoly on something that isn't distributed at all, unclear definition of derivative work in the face of bundling, linking, and reverse engineering, etc. etc..

Instead of limiting copyright to X years (possibly a very good idea for books, songs etc.), I think we need to think of a way to protect software makers from abuse of the fruits of his/her labour, while giving "the people" something substantive in return for the monopoly, the policing, etc.

This solution could include registering source code but it might be better to protect a "program" or "solution" than to try to protect source code as if it is some kind of literary work, and then extend that to the compiled version of that source code

Re:Either you agree with copyrights or you don't

[Enderandrew]

I rarely agree with RMS these days (as I discuss in a post below) but I don't agree with typical piracy either. I've done it, but as I get older, I want to pay for products.

I see the game companies I loved as a kid all go out of business, each citing piracy as a primary reason their PC game sales dropped. Other companies just shifted to console development, where piracy is more difficult. If you don't pay to support a product, don't expect that product to exist forever. I also believe a creator deserves the right to be financially rewarded for their creations. Being able to just take that creation for free isn't a right.

I still download a few albums illegally, but if I like them, I usually buy them afterward. Certain artists, I just buy the albums directly.

The only "piracy" I outright support is on two issues.

1 - Preservation of abandonware. If no one is selling a product for 5 years, you should be able to distribute it for preservation. You can not charge to distribute another person's product. If the creator re-releases the product, you can no longer distribute it again for 5 years.

2 - The DCMA says I can't legally circumvent copyright protection, but sadly copyright protection often interferes with software working correctly. I use no-cd/no-dvd patches on every game I own, and try to strip DRM from all software that I can, because I want the software to work correctly.

THE TRUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Stallman is jealous that pirates have the better beards.

Re:Lessig Already Proposed this

[l3ert]

This is why Stallman waited until now to propose it.

5 years is just too short, try 15.

[GiMP]

I think that the optimal number of years is closer to 15, it should be treated like "classic cars" are in Pennsylvania. This is enough years that publishers have had sufficient time to make profit, that the work has had sufficient opportunity to make and exploit its cultural impact, and is not so many years that the work is lost from lack of preservation.

In terms of software, 15 years is quite a bit of time, enough that software is unlikely to be of significant commercial use, so that copyright-lapsed software shouldn't too seriously affect the sales of modern solutions. Open sourced material lapsed into the public domain wouldn't be as much of a concern as it would be within a 5 year period.

If this was in force today, old versions of the GNU toolkits, the X11 system, and even Linux itself would be in the public domain. That might seem scary, but we're talking really old versions. If someone in 2009 wants to include Linux 0.99 into their embedded product without contributing their changes back, I'm not sure thats really a bad thing.

He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman was at my university for a lecture a few months ago. Halfway through he starts lambasting our IT department, most of whom are in the audience, for requiring users to authenticate before gaining network access. The school has a policy specifically *banning* tracking usage or anything invasive. They only require that users provide a username/password before getting network access, and he tears them a new one.

The IT department, BTW, is moving *away* from proprietary (specifically Microsoft) products. Right as the IT department is moving *to* open source, one of FOSS's biggest names decides to publicly hate on them.

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:Either you agree with copyrights or you don't

[Enderandrew]

So companies like Looking Glass Studios and Origin didn't understand their market well enough?

Every RPG enthusiast I know has played Planescape: Torment. Yet none of them purchased it. The game was deemed a commercial failure, and I'm not sure we'll ever see another game like it, despite the fact that Penny Arcade called it simply the greatest PC game of all time, and most RPG lovers call it their favorite.

It might be an excuse used by management to cover a bad product in some cases, but piracy does affect game sales to an extent.

And when you don't pay to support products, you can't bitch when those products disappear.

Re:Anyone Give A Shit What That Clown Says? Anyone

[smittyoneeach]

Far from it. RMS is the modern John the Baptist. He is an important part of the overall discussion, even if you don't agree with him.

Re:Why wait 5 years?

[ArsonSmith]

dumbass, that's not in the Constitution. It's in the Deceleration of Independence.

Re:Anyone Give A Shit What That Clown Says? Anyone

[Weedhopper]

Stallman gives everyone perspective.

He's the the guy you point to and say, "See that guy over there? That guy's the alternative." Makes anything you say seem moderate and rational in comparison.