[belorn]

Every time someone talks about piracy, someone just have to bring up GPL.

GPL says: Do what ever you want with the program so long no one become restricted by your actions.

If you patch it and send a proprietary version to someone, it will still be the same program. The difference will be the added restriction. The software license only uses copyright to enforce a "share, and share alike" concept.

Using copyright to restrict distribution, ala the proprietary model, is not the same as enforcing a share alike concept. They might use the same law, but the underlying concept is completely separate. Free and open source licenses are also not commonly enforced against individuals, but proprietary software is.

Or to summarize: Restrict restrictions is good. Breaking restrictions is good. Ignoring restrictions is good. Each 3 is consistent with each other.

[jakejake]

I'm not 100% sure your point but if you release work under the GPL then yes, you are giving people explicit permission to copy and share your work under those conditions. But, to use that as an example, if you enjoy pirating music and movies then, to be consistent, I feel you should also support violating the terms of the GPL and all other licenses. In other words, you should not be upset when for-profit companies use GPL code and do not give back or comply with the GPL conditions. Because if you do feel that the idea of licenses and intellectual property are bullshit, then everyone should just be able to ignore them and do whatever they want. As long as someone can get their hands on the code then they should be able to do whatever they want with it.

I think that's a messed up attitude personally, but at least it is a consistent attitude towards intellectual property. I could respect somebody for being consistent in their attitude - especially if they themselves are also having their work pirated. Anybody who is pirating music and movies, but they themselves do not tolerate disobeying the license terms of their own work I feel is a hypocrite.

[belorn]

I disagree, as I find it perfectly consistent attitude towards content restriction to be both for GPL, and to pirate content when its proprietary.

If people ignore content restrictions by pirating works, is that not consistent with the people who uses copyright to prevent content restrictions? Is it not also consistent with people who breaks content restrictions by breaking DRM?

In each 3 cases, content restriction is problem being dealt with. Preventing, ignoring or breaking, either way its dealt with.

[mike_hearn]

The GPL is not preventing content restrictions, it's adding quite complicated restrictions on what can be done with the code. The justification is to try and make more software GPLd in future but the means is additional restriction. And guess what? The justification for copyright is to ensure more content is created in future, and the means is restrictions on the created content. Just like the GPL. Trying to claim they're somehow different is a very weak sort of argument.