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

[jmcdermo <jmcdermo redhat com>]

On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 03:49, Jens Hardings wrote:
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> jmcdermo wrote:
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> |> |> 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.
> |
> |
> | Open Source software by definition is licensed.See:
> | http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
> 
> I completely agree, but that is different than what was stated
> originally: that all open source software was licensed under the GPL.
> The difference is important, since there is plenty of free software and
> open source software that is not licensed under the GPL/LGPL.

My wife has a saying... anything said before the word "but" is a lie:)
At any rate, if you agree, and its already well defined then this should
cut this portion of the thread short, open source is by definition
licensed software, and further is not just gpl'd software.

> | You are also confused here. Open source has several governing bodies,
> |  including the LSB and a hierarchical development structure for
> | mainstream and beta software. The nice part is that if you dont like
> | it you are free to make your own, but if it breaks POSIX compliance
> | or in some other way deviates from standards the public requires for
> | day to day use, expect to also have to create the rest of your own
> | distribution as it will be difficult finding anyone to ship the code.
> 
> So if nobody has to follow their lead, how are they really governing
> bodies? They certainly are leaders, and the ones who follow them do so
> voluntarily and only as long as they desire. 

Developers do have to follow their direction, or work with them, lest
their code does not get into the main tree. To understand this you need
to learn what motivates Linux development to begin with. The problems
you will very quickly run into is that Linux, which started as a kernel
whose code could fit on the back of a poster, has now turned into
thousands of packages, let alone lines of code. If you deviate from this
tree and decide to go it on your own, you are responsible for
maintaining updates now for thousands of packages and millions of lines
of code. Let me know how that works out for you.

Occasionally a coup will occur and a package will get a new owner, or be
deprecated for a better or different one, but it still rolls up to 1
person, or group of people. 

You are taking the idea of "voluntarily and only as long as they desire"
to mean that you can just go build your own anytime you want. It is true
that you are free to do so. However, depending on the licensing involved
"your own" is likely to have some base on the original work and you will
be extending theirs anyway. Which in plain english means you will be
patching their work... just without their approval. Since they are the
_main_ maintainer you now have the additional problem of who exactly is
going to be interested in your package? When they can just go get the
publicly available version from the actual maintainer. If you really are
that good, chances are you can perform one of those coups spoken of
above and end up maintaining the package. Though you can see how this
still means there is 1 person or group of people maintaining a specific
package, lest it is unused and ends up in the hell of never downloaded
packages.  

Im not a huge politics fan, though if I were to make a political model
out of Linux, it appears to be the same as the worlds government. Many
different packages, many different development systems. All roll up into
greater things, which I suppose you could compare with the UN. So on top
of the heap you have a body which isnt a government yet guides the
actions of maintainers below it, such as the LSB.  

So if the UN is an anarchy then I suppose the development model in Linux
could with some argument be made to reflect that. As far as not having
governing bodies for packages, do not make this assumption, it is
inaccurate.

--James 
 
> - --
> Jens.
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