ML vs. Lisp - Programming Languages

Thant Tessman <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:[color=blue]
> If so, his ****ogy doesn't demonstrate his point at all. The only
> reason freeing a slave is not theft is because a slave is a human
> being with a free will. Can you argue that "freeing" someone's
> television set is somehow not theft? Regardless, he obviously doesn't
> mind if people take away from his statement that not "freeing" your
> code is morally on par with slavery.[/color]

TV sets are not code. One could reasonably believe that if the
formula for Coca-Cola somehow got out, the government (i.e. the courts
and cops) should decline to do anything to to whoever let it out, that
if Coke doesn't want to release the formula, then keeping it secret is
Coca-Cola's responsibility, not the public's.

Something like that actually happened with the cigarette industry:
some company did a bunch of medical studies which they kept secret
because they shows smoking caused cancer; someone leaked copies of the
documents from one of the companies, the company yelled about theft
but the courts ruled that nothing had been stolen.

If you really want to know what RMS says, you might read his book
"Free Software, Free Society". Its contents are available in html at
[url]www.gnu.org[/url]. It looks like there's a pdf here:

notabug.com/2002/rms-essays.pdf

On 03 Mar 2007 10:13:44 -0800, Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>TV sets are not code.[/color]

Which gets to the core of the issue: Whether or not there is such a
thing as intellectual property. If there is such a thing, then code _is_
like a TV set; if there isn't, then it's not.

Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
[url]http://www.fenestra.com/[/url]

Steve Schafer <steve@fenestra.com> writes:[color=blue]
> Which gets to the core of the issue: Whether or not there is such a
> thing as intellectual property. If there is such a thing, then code _is_
> like a TV set; if there isn't, then it's not.[/color]

Information is not like TV sets despite the rhetoric of eccentrics who
like to think otherwise. That is long established in history and the
law. However, whether something is like a TV set is separate from
whether the government should intervene. The goverment intervenes
against many actions that don't involve anything like TV sets. RMS
apparently has the unusual view that unauthorized release of source
code should not be one of them.

Steve Schafer wrote:[color=blue]
> On 03 Mar 2007 10:13:44 -0800, Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid>
> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> TV sets are not code.[/color]
>
> Which gets to the core of the issue: Whether or not there is such a
> thing as intellectual property. If there is such a thing, then code _is_
> like a TV set; if there isn't, then it's not.[/color]

I'm not actually even talking about intellectual property. I'm talking
about the ability to set up voluntary contracts. By what crazy logic
should someone not be allowed to sell a binary without providing the
source along with it? Should the "free" software nuts be allowed to
break into your computer to get it?

-thant

Paul Rubin wrote:[color=blue]
> Steve Schafer <steve@fenestra.com> writes:[color=green]
>> Which gets to the core of the issue: Whether or not there is such a
>> thing as intellectual property. If there is such a thing, then code _is_
>> like a TV set; if there isn't, then it's not.[/color]
>
> Information is not like TV sets despite the rhetoric of eccentrics who
> like to think otherwise. That is long established in history and the
> law. However, whether something is like a TV set is separate from
> whether the government should intervene. The goverment intervenes
> against many actions that don't involve anything like TV sets. RMS
> apparently has the unusual view that unauthorized release of source
> code should not be one of them.[/color]

What if I broke into your house and stole nothing but personal
information? Have I committed a crime? The mere fact that I know your
social security number may not in itself be a crime. You may choose to
reveal it to me voluntarily, or you may have revealed it through
carelessness. But breaking into your house (or garbage can) to get it
most definitely is trespass.

-thant

Thant Tessman <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:[color=blue]
> I'm not actually even talking about intellectual property. I'm talking
> about the ability to set up voluntary contracts. By what crazy logic
> should someone not be allowed to sell a binary without providing the
> source along with it?[/color]

I thought you were ok with the GPL? Certainly if one accepts the
legitimacy of the copyright system (not everyone does), then the GPL
should be enforceable.

If you're talking about voluntary contracts in general, not all of
them are enforceable. If you lose a bet with me about who will win a
baseball game, that is a gambling debt and I'm of the impression that
the government will not help me collect it.

Paul Rubin wrote:[color=blue]
> Thant Tessman <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:[color=green]
>> I'm not actually even talking about intellectual property. I'm talking
>> about the ability to set up voluntary contracts. By what crazy logic
>> should someone not be allowed to sell a binary without providing the
>> source along with it?[/color]
>
> I thought you were ok with the GPL?[/color]

Yes, because it's a voluntary contract!

The problem with RMS is not the GPL. The problem with RMS is that he
thinks *everyone* should be forced to share *their* source code. He just
happens to be so sure of his position (or simply aware enough of the way
the real world works) that he's willing to play the intellectual
property game to further his agenda. That's what I find interesting
about him.

[...]
[color=blue]
> If you're talking about voluntary contracts in general, not all of
> them are enforceable. If you lose a bet with me about who will win a
> baseball game, that is a gambling debt and I'm of the impression that
> the government will not help me collect it.[/color]

Right. And this, along with, say, the fact that the government is far
more concerned with copyright violators than by, e.g. spammers and
scammers who break into a zillion computers and steal and defraud and so
forth just goes to show that government is not about protecting people's
property rights or enforcing voluntarily-entered contracts, but about
imposing the will of the politically influential.

But I've wandered far enough off topic.

-thant

Thant Tessman <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:[color=blue]
> The problem with RMS is not the GPL. The problem with RMS is that he
> thinks *everyone* should be forced to share *their* source code.[/color]

I've never heard him say that. I've even heard him say forcing anyone
to release source code they wrote themselves would be "tyrannical".
You're confusing forcing disclosure, with the government choosing not
to intervene if a disclosure happens.
[color=blue]
> so forth just goes to show that government is not about protecting
> people's property rights or enforcing voluntarily-entered contracts,[/color]

Well, the government's authority supposedly flows from the consent of
the governed, and so its willingness to recognize property rights and
enforce contracts can only go as far as the public wants it to go.
I'd say it sees certain types of contracts as not being in the public
interest
[color=blue]
> but about imposing the will of the politically influential.[/color]

There is no doubt that political influence explains the unequal
amounts of government attention given to things that should in
principle be treated the same way.

Paul Rubin wrote:[color=blue]
> Thant Tessman <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:[color=green]
>> The problem with RMS is not the GPL. The problem with RMS is that he
>> thinks *everyone* should be forced to share *their* source code.[/color]
>
> I've never heard him say that. I've even heard him say forcing anyone
> to release source code they wrote themselves would be "tyrannical".
> You're confusing forcing disclosure, with the government choosing not
> to intervene if a disclosure happens.[/color]

Yes, technically he does distinguish between code you never intend to
sell, and code you do intend to sell. This is exactly why I described
him as a genuine software communist. It is only source code as a
privately owned capital resource that he objects to.


[...insert long political diatribe here...]

-thant