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

[Jens Hardings <jens hardings cl>]

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Brent Fox wrote:

|> 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.

You are supposing that all Open Source software is released under the
GPL or copylefted. And that is not the case.

| 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

And the fact is that in both, scientific method and open source software
there is no central unit that somehow guides where the movement should
go. Everybody acts on their own and the global movement is a result of
all the independent interactions. It would be difficult to predict or
even force the direction the movement would take.

- --
Jens.
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