[fffggg]

Reading your post I'm lead to believe that you haven't read (or properly understood) his philosophical stance.

You say: "he's a nosy noser who can't keep his nose out of what goes on among consenting adults in situations that don't really involve him"

Yet, proprietary software development and the accompanying restrictions on related freedoms impacts us all. Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.

You may disagree with his conclusion; you may believe it is OK to claim property-like control over intangible, intellectual constructs. But you cannot say that this control does not affect others. You cannot say that it does not affect him.

The very nature of copyright is to limit the freedom of all other persons with respect to a particular work.

[bunderbunder]

Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.

This is exactly the point that I don't think can be justified unless you're nosy. Before the proprietary app was created, it didn't exist. By any practical measure, the distinction between a software developer not creating an app at all, and creating it but only being willing to share it under terms that are unacceptable to a given person is nil. Regardless of how you get there, not having the app is not having the app.

Proprietary software licensing is just a type of contract. And like any other contract, it only applies to people who voluntarily choose to enter into it. And the ability of individuals to freely enter into agreements whereby they exchange goods and services, perhaps subject to additional conditions, is an essential feature of free society. If nobody's forcing you to enter into the contract, then your freedom is intact.

On the other hand, pressuring those to whom the contract is acceptable to avoid entering it suggests a lack of respect for the freedoms of those who disagree with oneself. Just as assuming that someone who doesn't agree with you just doesn't understand your position suggests a more general lack of respect for those who disagree with oneself.

[fffggg]

"Regardless of how you get there, not having the app is not having the app."

This sentiment is a great example of how you're missing the point. It isn't about having an app. It isn't about getting things.

It's about freedom of expression. Intellectual control laws - Patents and Copyright - both work by preventing individuals from creating or sharing their own intellectual work, or sharing a work they have observed. That is quite literally their only function. Without Copyright I am free to create and share anything I can imagine. With Copyright, I am forbidden from creating certain kinds of works, and I am forbidden from sharing certain kinds of communications regarding works I have observed.

If, in the absence of Copyright, you simply neglect to create a work then my freedom of expression remains unencumbered. This is the nature of the freedom Stallman seeks to defend.

Your mention of contracts again indicates you do not understand the essence of this issue. Contracts are entered into willingly, between consenting participants. Copyright however, does not come in the form of a contract. It is an intellectual shackle which restricts the freedom of every person to create works based on what they observe, whether they like it or not. The licensing you refer to is a merely a mechanism to loosen the already-existing shackle of Copyright -- for a price.

[bunderbunder]

If we're talking about banning copyright altogether, that seems to go well beyond Stallman's position. His objection to these kinds of restrictions seems to only extend to software. (e.g., "Game art is a different issue, because it isn't software.")

You also seem to deeply misunderstand his position on copyright. Far from only functioning to "prevent individuals from creating or sharing their work", Stallman himself writes his essay "Misinterpreting Copyright" that he sees the function of copyright as a way to benefit end-users by incentivizing people to create and share their work. And with this I agree with Mr. Stallman - and apparently disagree with you - wholeheartedly.

The point where our opinions diverge is whether this goal is served or hindered by closed-source software. RMS contends that software is a sort of special case. He gives all sorts of reasons which are largely valid complaints, but ultimately he has failed to see the forest for the trees. His complaints are only of much note to a small elite of hackers like ourselves - for the vast majority of the population, they simply do not outweigh the advantages that he agrees justify the existence of copyright in any other situation. As far as most people are concerned, the kind of software that is produced most plentifully when motivated by the profit incentive that copyright is designed to create has improved people's quality of life to an extent that public domain software can match only under what history has shown to be a very limited set of circumstances. Oftentimes those circumstances relegate it to a critical but, one must admit, supporting role - SQLite has done much for a lot of people, but it tends to do the most when it's sitting behind commercial software. And in those situations public domain (or even Free) software is a very good thing.

But I don't get the impression that RMS particularly cares about that consideration - he's much more worried about his own desires as a hacker, and he's willing to tell other people that their desires as members of the technological laity are immoral in the service of those desires. Or perhaps he just doesn't see what he's doing. Either way he's never been opposed to copyright as you suggest. He's actually rather a fan of copyright. He just doesn't like it when it's keeping him out of the source code.

Now if we wanted to discuss whether copyright protections last for an order of mangitude longer than they should (which they do), or whether laws governing the enforcement of copyright are draconian (which they are), that would be different. And, incidentally, that's another spot where I wholeheartedly agree with the Free Software Foundation's position.

[fffggg]

I didn't say anything about banning copyright; I didn't express my own position at all.

Frankly I'm at a loss as to your point, or how it is relevant. You seem to be jumping between various argumentative positions as they crumble away. It's clear you'd really like to discredit RMS, but beyond that I don't know what you're trying to achieve.

I'd rather not argue with you. I'm just here to explain the problem with your initial position and I've already done that.

[dllthomas]

> Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.

That depends on what the alternative was. Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program, there are restrictions on how it is used - that's what proprietary means - but a situation of a proprietary program existing is less constrained than a situation of no program existing: you still have the option to not use that kind of program or write a free one but now you also have the option to use the proprietary one. Where constraints are created is the choice to release the given program as non-FOSS.

[gnaritas]

You may not be able to write a free one if the proprietary version has patents you'd infringe upon. The existence of the proprietary version can preclude other options being legal.