Re: [OS:N:] OS does not reject copyright WAS Open Source as a formof Anarcho-Communism?

[Brent Fox <bfox redhat com>]

On Wed, 2003-03-19 at 09:18, JT Moree wrote:
> It is being repeated in this thread that Open Source software REJECTS 
> copyright.
> 
> Some Open Source software--in fact--depends on copyright to exist.  If 
> copyright did not give ME ownership of MY code, I could not restrict YOU 
> to keeping it Open/Free upon using it.
> 
> If all OS/Free software were to reject copyright, it would result in a 
> BSD style movement.  There would be no GPL.

Indeed.  This is a very important point.  Copyright law is the
foundation upon which the GPL is built.

And where does copyright law come from?  Or any other laws for that
matter?  From governments.  Therefore, I think the premise that the Open
Source is in any way anarchistic is flawed.

It also seems that some people are eager to draw connections between the
Open Source movement and political ideologies.  Some see it as an
embodiment of a Marxist ideal.  Some see it as an anti-capitalist
statement.  Others try to tie it to some Utopian worldview.

It is none of these things.  It is simply a large number of programmers
that use the Internet to collaborate on various software projects.  

To me, Open Source represents the application of the Scientific Method
to software.  The programmers are computer scientists that share the
results of their work with the rest of the world.  This allows other
programmers to build on the work that has already been done.  In the
early days of computing, this type of collaborative effort was common. 
It wasn't until many years later that people started keeping the source
to themselves, which created the software industry as we know it today. 
The entire GNU project was based on the desire to return to that sense
of cooperation.  http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html



Cheers,
   Brent