Free software

[jeeza]

On www.moria.de/~michael/freedom.html , the authors says :

Software consists of thoughts and ideas expressed in a language that can be understood by machines to let them perform a certain task. That's not exactly news. Like thoughts can be spread by telling, software can be copied. Freedom of speech, expressed in native language, is considered a high value, yet freedom to spread thoughts expressed in a programming language is a strange idea to many people. In my opinion, that's because they do not understand programming languages, so why should they feel concerned?

The concept of freedom in software is not easy to grasp. Let me give an example what free software means for regular users. If you see a cool program on a friend's computer, you may want a copy. No problem if it is free. If it is not, he would act illegal by doing you that favour that does not even cost him money. In a world of free software, you could share software like ideas and thoughts are shared by people of common interests anywhere else.
This makes sense to me.
If you own a book, you can lend it to a friend. The author won't complain.
You have the right to let your neighbor use your lawn mower or your hammer. Who would dare to stop you from doing so ?
Then why do companies selling software object to someone sharing what he bought from them ? There is no sense in this, it's gratuitous like someone posting himself at the entrance to a bridge and levying toll for letting people cross it.
I can understand these companies want money and want to protect their revenue (anybody can understand that :D ), but I don't see the moral rightness behind it.
And obviously there are lots of people who think this way.

[Abbadon]

oink?

Are you serious?

The comparison with books or hammers is fundamentaly flawed.

When you make an illegal copy of software, you do not "loan" it to the other person. Loaning means that the other person will give it back. Lending something means the item does not get duplicated. When you "loan" your hammer to your neighbour, do you replicate it so he has one too forever? I think not.

Copying software is like copying a book (which is illegal) for someone.
Copying software is NOT like lending a book to someone.

Legal software sharing would consist of removing the program from your pc and giving the cd to someone else.

I agree, many people think different. Including me. I have many illegaly copied programs & games. But I don't make up elaborate fairy tails to justify this.

[saphalline]

It's not illegal to share software in the sense of transferring total ownership. In the example quote you posted, your friend would have to give you a copy of the software and then totally delete it off his computer. That's how you legally share software. However, since software is so easily copied, it's virtually impossible to stop everyone who makes a copy for a friend and also keeps a copy for himself/herself.

A book is entirely different because making a copy of a book is not easily done! :p

Also, I think the author of that quote is missing a few details. Sharing thoughts and ideas is all good and wonderful, and for the most part that's how the world works. The part where economics comes in, aka "the part where we get paid" :D, is the point where merely sharing ideas doesn't equate to comprehension. A heart-surgeon could stand around all day and tell me the basics of doing open-heart surgery, but that doesn't mean anyone would let me do it! Just because the surgeon shared his ideas and thoughts with me does not make me qualified to do his job. Or the author of a book. The author wrote the book, and even though I am also capable of writing 200 pages worth of words does not mean anyone would pay for it! A unique collection of ideas and thoughts is what we pay for, and what we in turn protect. We're not talking about basic facts like the heart pumps blood or sentence structure, we're talking about the culmination of these basic facts into a higher level of knowledge and skill.

Likewise, programmers get paid for their thousands of specific ideas and lines of code into (hopefully :p) a single cohesive program that is unique in the way it performs certain functions. Anyone can be taught to make a "Hello world" program, but it takes the truly talented and dedicated to make an entire OS or a great game.

[jeeza]

Originally posted by Abbadon
When you make an illegal copy of software, you do not "loan" it to the other person. Loaning means that the other person will give it back. Lending something means the item does not get duplicated. When you "loan" your hammer to your neighbour, do you replicate it so he has one too forever? I think not.

Copying software is like copying a book (which is illegal) for someone.
Copying software is NOT like lending a book to someone.
I see your point.
In the case of software, lending it to someone would entail either :
- letting that person use your computer where you have installed that software ;
- or making a copy of the software, deleting it from your computer, giving the copy to your friend, and installing it anew on your computer from the copy when your friend returns it to you (at which time he should have deleted it from his computer, himself).
So, there couldn't possibly be held anything someone who deleted the software from his own computer during the time he has lent it to someone else ?

[jeeza]

saphalline, I see you have put a lot of thinking and effort into your post. I will read it another time, when I am a bit more able to think than I am now (I lack sleep). Hope you don't mind.

[mjc]

Before you all start going on about illegalities......you need to look at the license of the software involved.

If it is GNU/GPL then what was posted above most certainly does apply. That is the entire purpose of those and similar licenses...granting the end-user the freedom to distribute the software.

If the license is a traditional one, like found on MS products, then it does not apply and the act then becomes illegal.

OpenSource software typically has an open license, ClosedSource (commercial) software has a closed one.

Then there is an area of freeware that falls inbetween....the source is not available to the end-user and distribution is limited to the entire package as a whole.....

[Paul Komski]

mjc has hit on the most relevant word - LICENCE.

Nearly all software is not owned by the person buying or otherwise acquiring it. People are licensed to use it in a number of ways; the software is never their own - unless they do a very special deal with the software developer and buy up his or her rights to it.

[Abbadon]

Very true indeed. I automaticly went of talking about the traditional licence, but other stuff does exist.

mjc, what does gnu/gpl stand for?

[pave_spectre]

GNU - GNUs Not Unix (http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/jump/0,24331,2189744,00.html)
GPL - General Public License

Used on a lot of open source software.