Stefan's headers [was:Names and identifiers]

[Richard Damon]

On 6/9/18 6:48 AM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Richard Damon <Richard at Damon-Family.org>:
>> Copyright law is not what makes something 'closed source' in the eyes
>> of the Open Source community. For example, Microsoft doesn't use
>> Copyright to keep the source code for Windows secret, they just don't
>> provide it.
> It would leak out with developers who move to new jobs. And that would
> be good.

If you plan on eliminating not only copyright, but trade secret and
non-disclosure laws, sure, maybe. Yes probably some limited stuff would
leak. More likely the work conditions at those places would get
stricter, and likely would make it hard for someone inside to 'make a copy'.

More importantly, if we didn't have copyright laws, we likely didn't get
windows or even Dos anywhere near as early, and maybe even not home
computers.
>> The thing that gives the Open Source licenses the power to force
>> people to share the source code is that their IS a copyright on the
>> source code and the usage license on it demands revealing
>> modifications to others.
> Most open-source licenses don't have that stipulation:
>
>    <URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-sour
>    ce_software_licenses>
>
> In particular, CPython's license doesn't seem to require it:
>
>    <URL: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/LICENSE>
>
>> If software providers could no longer depend on Copyright law, then
>> you would see much more use of the hobbling copy protection
>> technologies, and automatically enforced licensing methods. That, and
>> a lot less software produced.
> The consequences would be hard to estimate precisely. You don't need so
> many reimplementations of ideas if good ideas could be copied freely. I
> believe the society would gain faster progress of software solutions
> with the copyright restrictions gone.
>
>
> Marko

I've had this discussion before, and I think you underestimate how much
innovation would be inhibited it companies were restricted from being
able to make a profit off the development of intellectual property.

Our current computing environment grew out of the ability for companies
to make a profit out of the sales of software. Without the base of
commercial software, the demand for inexpensive hardware to run it on
wouldn't be there, and computers then would be expensive, and a limited
base to promote the development of the Free Software movement.

-- 
Richard Damon