[larodi]

I can't help but think that the idea of copyleft was already pioneered and applied during the same time in the Soviet block of countries, where virtually copyright did not exist. Of course without all the fanfares...

So it was all copyleft, right? Definitely can remember us look with "awe and wonder" at Lawrence Lessig when he first visited one university in one ex-soviet country to lecture about the value of sharing software to a room full of people that have never ever in their life bought any.

[extraduder_ire]

The key thing about "copyleft" is that it uses copyright mechanisms to ensure the code stays free (as in freedom). This is different than disowning/ignoring copyright, and more of an inversion of how proprietary software works.

Pirating software doesn't help too much when you want to study/modify it.