Thread: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
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mrojas is offline mrojas
2010-03-03 , 17:42
Posts: 733 | Thanked: 991 times | Joined on Dec 2008
#234
Originally Posted by ewan View Post
It's not about the price per se, but a consequence of respecting the freedom of your users. You may or may not believe that people have a right to study, modify and share software, but some people do. Software freedom is like freedom of speech; you can't take it away from people by contract just because it's convenient for you to do so.
I respect your right of opening or closing your software, so I also expect you respect my right of opening or closing sourcing mine. This mutual respect of what I don't see happening in the software world.

My point is: is we are talking about freedom, then I am free to do with my software whatever I want with it, like making it fully propietary or making it fully GPL compliant.

Since I am not coercing people into using my software, the only thing I would ask from them is to respect the rules by which I release my software, being them open or closed.

The problem here, is that many people use the argument of freedom to not respect such rules. There is, off course, people that use the propietary system to preserve knowledge secret, when it would benefit more people if it was shared.

I think there is where the patent system was supposed to help: you work hard, you get a breakthrough, and you get to enjoy the perks of it (propietary), and after some time, you are supposed to release the advancement for the common good (open).
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