[carlosjobim]

Computer code is not comparable to a book. A better comparison would be a blueprint or a recipe. If Coca-Cola publishes their recipe wide and far for anybody to read, would you rage together with them when another beverage company starts selling drinks together with them?

[zelphirkalt]

Computer code is also not comparable with a wallet thrown onto a busy street corner.

Can you decide, whether you are OK with unfit comparisons or not, instead of trying to have it both ways?

[carlosjobim]

Good point! However, a book is nothing more and nothing less than its content. Code you can copy and implement wherever you want, and nobody necessarily would know it, unless you also publish it as open source.

Let me make a music comparison. If Metallica or Michael Jackson uploaded all their raw recording tracks to Napster and The Pirate Bay. The DAW files, or the separate instrument and voice tapes. Do they have a right to then get mad if people use those files to make remixes and edits?

There is a way to give away your software for free without any risk of people stealing your work: Just give the compiled binaries.

If you upload your source code to a public website explicitly created for source code sharing, which even has a one button press to copy the source code, then you have no right to be mad that somebody copied your source code. You then did everything in your might to facilitate that behaviour.

Okay, not everything. I guess FOSS people could also start hacking in to other people's computers and install their software there, so that they can turn around and be outraged that their code was stolen. That's probably the next step being prepared in the FOSS swamp right now.

[InsideOutSanta]

> Computer code is not comparable to a book

Counterpoint: Yes, it is. Both are copyrighted under the same legal system.