drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) (10/21/87)
david@sun.uucp (David DiGiacomo) writes: > In article <31209@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > >>I have no qualms about doing anything I damn well > >>please with any piece of software I get my hands on. > >By the same right, this means that if I want to borrow your car for some > >drag racing (even if it happens to be locked) I should feel free, right? > Neither analogy is relevant. > As has been pointed out by others, software is > unlike physical objects in that it can be copied indefinitely with no > degradation, and at no cost. If I post software to the net, nothing > Root Boy does to it will affect my subsequent enjoyment of it. Excepting the crucial matter of enjoying the money you could have made selling the use of it. The way I look at it, I'm a programmer. Now, as long as I'm on salary, it doesn't really matter whether software copyrights are enforcable or not (though my employer might think differently). BUT... If I'm working on my own account, the produce of my labor is *software*, and if I don't have any property-right in it, then I have (in practice) no ability and (in theory) no right to make money off my labor. Now, both common sense and first-year law courses say "the essence of ownership is the right to prevent others from using the thing". Is it really fair to take from the workman the right to profit by the sale of the product of his labor? If you're really Marxist about it, then we should all be working for "the common good", and freely contribute our labor. But if you favor a system where someone's income is determined by their labor, copyright is really a moral necessity. All of this is recognized in the US Consitution: "In order to promote the useful arts, ... Congress shall have the right to issue copyrights for a limited number of years." (or something like that) Dale -- Dale Worley Cullinet Software ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!culdev1!drw Give me money or kill me! Exercise your childishness -- remember, we are all 10 in some base.