Re: GNU licenses

[David Kastrup]

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

> Richard Tobin wrote:
>> 
>> In article <45004B92.A94FD03A@web.de>,
>> Alexander Terekhov  <terekhov@web.de> wrote:
>> 
>> >> There seems to be a substantial profit for the "buyer" here: they get
>> >> a program for nothing.
>> 
>> >I was talking about a profit for seller
>> 
>> You were pretending to answer David Kastrup's very reasonable comment:
>> 
>>    Well, that is what is called civilization and culture.  Not having to
>>    reinvent the wheel, but profiting from the knowledge created by
>>    others.
>
> Yeah, very reasonable. As if copyright is about knowledge, and not 
> expression.

Expression _is_ distilled knowledge.  If it weren't for the detailedly
versed expression of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey, making it possible to
preserve it over hundreds of years in oral tradition, a lot of
knowledge about ancient Greek myths and Gods would not have survived.

In a similar vein, there is no more concise and exact expression of
knowledge in computing rather than the actual algorithm cast into
computer code.

>> by pretending that he was using "profit" in your narrow sense.
>
> It's market economy sense, stupid.

Alexander is again running out of arguments and needs to resort to
name-calling.

> Release your stuff into the public domain so that the whole society
> can profit from it

But the whole society _can_ profit from it.  As long as it
reciprocates.  The freeloaders trying to exploit the stuff by using it
for something which _can't_ be shared are left out.

> (instead of removing economic incentive to create derivative works
> by making profit in a free market by trading derivative works) and
> I'd have no problem with that. That is what is called
> civilization.

You'll find that all civilized systems have regulations in place that
make sure that antisocial activities are not rewarded.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum