If you're not going to redistribute, then the GPL doesn't apply to you anyway, so saying that is kind of stupid. It's like saying that Google's privacy policy doesn't apply to me if I don't use Google products.
if Acme Software is selling code under GPL3, or even GPL2, they are not obligated to share it, if they wish to sell it for whatever amount they deem fit,
While there's nothing preventing Acme from selling it, they do have to share the source as well, as they are distributing it.
And I wouldn't buy it from Acme anyway, as it would probably blow up in my face (literally). Although it would get here quite quickly.
but companies who make something have a legitimate right to not want it to be altered
Maybe. But in that case, they need to do what Sony (although it seems as if the project just happens to be headed by someone who happens to work at Sony, and the project isn't Sony's at all) is doing, and write it themselves. You may not want your stuff to be altered, but if you're going to use my code, you have to agree to my terms.
That's not absurd in the least. If you didn't want to share the code, why not write it all yourself? You knew the terms under which you used those few lines of code before you used them.
How is it unreasonable? Do you seriously think you should be able to get off with nothing more than a "My bad. Here you go"? You had the intent of saying "Fuck you!" to their project, when you knew the terms ahead of time. You knew what required, and decided to piss all over those terms. Why shouldn't you be punished?
So what? If you ruin a device you've bought, paid for, and OWN, why should Sony care if you ruin it?
Well, while most of us might be smart enough to tinker safely, and know that this is violating our warranty, the majority of people won't. They'll hear there's some cool stuff you can do, and run off and try it. And when they fuck their device up, they're gonna call up Sony and say their shit's broken. Either Sony fixes the thing, despite the warranty violation, or they tell the customer to politely piss off, in which case the person gets angry and starts bitching about how terrible Sony is. It's a lose-lose situation for Sony. And replace Sony with just about every other consumer electronics manufacturer out there, and the case will be the same.
Bullshit. If the product has a design flaw, then it needs to be fixed. If the customer takes a hammer to it, the manufacturer is under no obligation to repair it.
In theory. In reality, they know that customer will go ranting all along the intarwebs, and many others will hear him, and it will be damaging to them.
Except now I have to buy enough to actually have a voice to be listened to. Your average investor who is trying to build their retirement, basically anyone who isn't Mitt Romney, won't be able to do that. The best I can do is to look at a company's numbers, see if they match up with what I'm looking for, and see if it looks like the company is going to be healthy for a while.
Further, forcing me to hold on to stock for 5 years means that, in the near future, should some harm befall me, like illness or a severe car accident, I can't sell those assets to raise cash to mitigate it. You're probably going to respond with some BS about insurance, or proper planning, but now you're basically dictating to people how they should use their money. And at the same time, you're ignoring the fact that 1). A lot of people can't get health insurance (thank you pre-existing condition), and 2). Health insurance in the US sucks large portions of ass due to the ease at which a company can drop you.
While I agree that stuff like HFT does far more harm than good, your plan does far more harm than good in the opposite direction.
The requirement is there if you distribute the work. Its true that if you only use it yourself, you don't have to distribute back. But those cases aren't as common.
Programming is not "hard work." If you think it is, then you should do other work.
Yes it is. How can you say otherwise? Is it because you don't break a sweat while doing it? So fucking what. Physical exertion is not the only measure of whether something is hard work.
You should learn something about the beginnings of "copyright." You know, like who and what it was for and all that. Shakespeare didn't need copyright to be motivated to write. Writing was a necessary step for putting on the show. And the wide variety of human works did not require similar protections for them to come about. You accept copyright as a natural right, but it is anything but.
I don't accept it as a "natural right". I fully understand that it's a right that exists only because of society. Just like every single one of those "natural rights" you claim exist. None of them are natural. Outside of society, you don't have a right to anything. Go try telling a lion you have a right to exist. He'll tell you to fuck off while he tears your head off.
I haven't convinced you of anything, I know. The people who understand what I am saying already agree with me. Your belief can't be swayed with facts -- belief rarely is. But just maybe you have the capacity to see things from another angle to see if it's valid... maybe. But since coding is "hard work" to you, I'm going to doubt it./quote.
Go fuck yourself. Seriously. You haven't convinced anyone of anything because you're being a smug little asshole. Yes, I understand that humans have this natural desire to create, and that most people would still do so without copyright, or an ability to make money off of it. Doesn't change the fact that I should be able to make money off my ability to write software, and I should choose to be able to do so by selling the product. Don't agree with it? Fine. Don't buy the fucking product, and don't use it either.
And go fuck your "The only hard work is physical labor" bullshit. In many instances, physical labor is EASIER. Know why? When the whistle blows, someone who has a construction job or a retail job gets to go home and doesn't have to think about work anymore. They get to go home, knowing exactly what they accomplished that day, and have a sense of pride accordingly. They can concentrate on other things, because there aren't nagging problems in the back of their head. Those of us who do knowledge work? No such luxury. There are days where you can't be certain that you actually got something done, because you're still in the middle of it, or the problem is in flux. And you don't really get to "go home", because the problem is always in the back of your head.
Are you actually trying to say that the iPhone is functionally equivalent to the LG Prada, and that Apple didn't put any more innovation or improvements into it?
Under your proposal, A might not write the program in the first place if they don't think they can recoup their investment. Obviously some open source stuff contradicts this, but not everyone can afford to just write software for the sake of writing software.
Well, in the case you presented, the original creator is still getting credit for their work. Not much condolence, I know, but they're getting something, and that something can be used for profit later. The idea that usually comes to mind is that pirate fans will come to live shows and buy merchandise.
In the case of the article, the original creator is NOT getting credit for their work. Someone playing the Zynga knock off of a game is thinking that Zynga created it, and doesn't know anything about the original creator. The original creator is not only screwed out of revenues for that game, but out of the potential for future revenues from fans.
Fuck off with your "You have no right" bullshit. Nobody is saying that. However, you cannot possibly think its right that another studio can come along and blatantly copy your game, and force you out of the market simply because they are bigger.
Except now you've just completely destroyed someone's ability to react to changes in the market, and changes in the world. I can't predict what will happen 5 years from now, or what will happen in the ensuing time. There are a good number of things outside of my control that could happen, causing the value of the company to drop, and my interest in investing in it to drop. But now I have to suck it out, when I might want to go invest in a better company.
Of course it is. Capitalism is simply about making the most money, period. It doesn't give a fuck how that happens, just so long as you make more money next year.
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If you're not going to redistribute, then the GPL doesn't apply to you anyway, so saying that is kind of stupid. It's like saying that Google's privacy policy doesn't apply to me if I don't use Google products.
if Acme Software is selling code under GPL3, or even GPL2, they are not obligated to share it, if they wish to sell it for whatever amount they deem fit,
While there's nothing preventing Acme from selling it, they do have to share the source as well, as they are distributing it.
And I wouldn't buy it from Acme anyway, as it would probably blow up in my face (literally). Although it would get here quite quickly.
but companies who make something have a legitimate right to not want it to be altered
Maybe. But in that case, they need to do what Sony (although it seems as if the project just happens to be headed by someone who happens to work at Sony, and the project isn't Sony's at all) is doing, and write it themselves. You may not want your stuff to be altered, but if you're going to use my code, you have to agree to my terms.
Why the fuck should they put in exemptions for this? No other proprietary license does, so why should they?
And if only "two lines" can fuck up your code, then why didn't you write them yourself if you didn't want to open source your project?
That's not absurd in the least. If you didn't want to share the code, why not write it all yourself? You knew the terms under which you used those few lines of code before you used them.
If they had dropped the fully unreasonable claim
How is it unreasonable? Do you seriously think you should be able to get off with nothing more than a "My bad. Here you go"? You had the intent of saying "Fuck you!" to their project, when you knew the terms ahead of time. You knew what required, and decided to piss all over those terms. Why shouldn't you be punished?
So what? If you ruin a device you've bought, paid for, and OWN, why should Sony care if you ruin it?
Well, while most of us might be smart enough to tinker safely, and know that this is violating our warranty, the majority of people won't. They'll hear there's some cool stuff you can do, and run off and try it. And when they fuck their device up, they're gonna call up Sony and say their shit's broken. Either Sony fixes the thing, despite the warranty violation, or they tell the customer to politely piss off, in which case the person gets angry and starts bitching about how terrible Sony is. It's a lose-lose situation for Sony. And replace Sony with just about every other consumer electronics manufacturer out there, and the case will be the same.
Bullshit. If the product has a design flaw, then it needs to be fixed. If the customer takes a hammer to it, the manufacturer is under no obligation to repair it.
In theory. In reality, they know that customer will go ranting all along the intarwebs, and many others will hear him, and it will be damaging to them.
No, the GPL does not force others to share.
If you use it, and distribute it, it does. Saying that it doesn't force you to share because you can just "not use it" is absolutely obtuse.
Except now I have to buy enough to actually have a voice to be listened to. Your average investor who is trying to build their retirement, basically anyone who isn't Mitt Romney, won't be able to do that. The best I can do is to look at a company's numbers, see if they match up with what I'm looking for, and see if it looks like the company is going to be healthy for a while.
Further, forcing me to hold on to stock for 5 years means that, in the near future, should some harm befall me, like illness or a severe car accident, I can't sell those assets to raise cash to mitigate it. You're probably going to respond with some BS about insurance, or proper planning, but now you're basically dictating to people how they should use their money. And at the same time, you're ignoring the fact that 1). A lot of people can't get health insurance (thank you pre-existing condition), and 2). Health insurance in the US sucks large portions of ass due to the ease at which a company can drop you.
While I agree that stuff like HFT does far more harm than good, your plan does far more harm than good in the opposite direction.
I'd still like things to be able to get done.
The requirement is there if you distribute the work. Its true that if you only use it yourself, you don't have to distribute back. But those cases aren't as common.
Programming is not "hard work." If you think it is, then you should do other work.
Yes it is. How can you say otherwise? Is it because you don't break a sweat while doing it? So fucking what. Physical exertion is not the only measure of whether something is hard work.
You should learn something about the beginnings of "copyright." You know, like who and what it was for and all that. Shakespeare didn't need copyright to be motivated to write. Writing was a necessary step for putting on the show. And the wide variety of human works did not require similar protections for them to come about. You accept copyright as a natural right, but it is anything but.
I don't accept it as a "natural right". I fully understand that it's a right that exists only because of society. Just like every single one of those "natural rights" you claim exist. None of them are natural. Outside of society, you don't have a right to anything. Go try telling a lion you have a right to exist. He'll tell you to fuck off while he tears your head off.
I haven't convinced you of anything, I know. The people who understand what I am saying already agree with me. Your belief can't be swayed with facts -- belief rarely is. But just maybe you have the capacity to see things from another angle to see if it's valid... maybe. But since coding is "hard work" to you, I'm going to doubt it./quote.
Go fuck yourself. Seriously. You haven't convinced anyone of anything because you're being a smug little asshole. Yes, I understand that humans have this natural desire to create, and that most people would still do so without copyright, or an ability to make money off of it. Doesn't change the fact that I should be able to make money off my ability to write software, and I should choose to be able to do so by selling the product. Don't agree with it? Fine. Don't buy the fucking product, and don't use it either.
And go fuck your "The only hard work is physical labor" bullshit. In many instances, physical labor is EASIER. Know why? When the whistle blows, someone who has a construction job or a retail job gets to go home and doesn't have to think about work anymore. They get to go home, knowing exactly what they accomplished that day, and have a sense of pride accordingly. They can concentrate on other things, because there aren't nagging problems in the back of their head. Those of us who do knowledge work? No such luxury. There are days where you can't be certain that you actually got something done, because you're still in the middle of it, or the problem is in flux. And you don't really get to "go home", because the problem is always in the back of your head.
Are you actually trying to say that the iPhone is functionally equivalent to the LG Prada, and that Apple didn't put any more innovation or improvements into it?
You need to provide citations that prove they actually said those things.
No, but it definitely was the first MP3 player worth buying.
Under your proposal, A might not write the program in the first place if they don't think they can recoup their investment. Obviously some open source stuff contradicts this, but not everyone can afford to just write software for the sake of writing software.
While I feel bad for the little guy, I really, really, really don't want that precedent to continue.
Well, in the case you presented, the original creator is still getting credit for their work. Not much condolence, I know, but they're getting something, and that something can be used for profit later. The idea that usually comes to mind is that pirate fans will come to live shows and buy merchandise.
In the case of the article, the original creator is NOT getting credit for their work. Someone playing the Zynga knock off of a game is thinking that Zynga created it, and doesn't know anything about the original creator. The original creator is not only screwed out of revenues for that game, but out of the potential for future revenues from fans.
What's to stop shit like this from bleeding over into the rest of the gaming sector?
You are an awful fucking person. This "Anything they do is ok since they have more money" bullshit is exactly what is wrong with society today.
Fuck off with your "You have no right" bullshit. Nobody is saying that. However, you cannot possibly think its right that another studio can come along and blatantly copy your game, and force you out of the market simply because they are bigger.
Fuck off with your anarcho-capitalist bullshit.
Except now you've just completely destroyed someone's ability to react to changes in the market, and changes in the world. I can't predict what will happen 5 years from now, or what will happen in the ensuing time. There are a good number of things outside of my control that could happen, causing the value of the company to drop, and my interest in investing in it to drop. But now I have to suck it out, when I might want to go invest in a better company.
Of course it is. Capitalism is simply about making the most money, period. It doesn't give a fuck how that happens, just so long as you make more money next year.
And right there you have just demonstrated one of the biggest problems with capitalism.
Unless you're talking about shareholders and not employees, now you've greatly crippled their ability to actually get things done.
No, it wouldn't help in this situation. It would actually make it easier for the big guys to rip the small guys off.