[OT] What is Open Source? (was Re: ANN: Twisted 0.16.0...)

[Aahz]

In article <3CC8D767.599720 at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz>,
Greg Ewing  <greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>Julian Tibble wrote:
>> 
>> erm... If there is no copyright then there is no *need* for copyleft.
>
>But if RMS would be happy with a world in which there was simply no
>copyright, he wouldn't bother with the GPL -- he could get the same
>effect just by putting all the stuff he writes in the public domain.
>
>The fact that he hasn't done that means he *does* want *some* kind of
>intellectual property laws.

Not quite.  The problem with public domain is that someone could make a
small modification and then assert IP ownership over the corpus.  The
Timbot rightly says people over-worry about this, but it's definitely a
problem in some cases.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"I used to have a .sig but I found it impossible to please everyone..."  --SFJ