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by hackuser 3992 days ago
> If we just drop IP laws, that further enriches these corps at the cost of individual and/or small creators. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

A good question, but I'm not sure. Those large corporations produce a lot of IP; maybe the small guy will benefit more than the big guy. Remember we're all stealing from and building on each other's IP. Imagine if all the proprietary software was open source, from OS X to Office to SunOS to SAS to Mathematica to Photoshop to AutoCAD to Google's search algorithms.

It would be a dream for many to be able to study, learn from, and reuse that code. It would be like the IP of the academic world, which generally is open and reusable by others.
2 comments
raquo 3992 days ago
> Imagine if all the proprietary software was open source, from OS X to Office to SunOS to SAS to Mathematica to Photoshop to AutoCAD to Google's search algorithms

Most of this wouldn't even exist if it had to be open-source from the start.

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hackuser 3991 days ago
I agree that's a possibility, and it's the obvious concern. I'm trying to challenge our (mine included) common notion.

My 'radical idea' is that maybe they would exist. What if we had a system that provided a payment mechanism but did away with IP restrictions, for example? Consider how most of science is funded and shared, for example. Massive projects like the LHC and space probes are funded, and their data is openly shared. I'm not saying that the exact same system would work for software, but that there are other systems that work very well.

I'd expect that with 'open' technology, innovation would be faster and products would be better, as everyone could use and learn from best-in-class tech.

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lmm 3992 days ago
On the contrary, most of these things started as either university research projects or just someone playing around, and were only monetized later.
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incompatible 3992 days ago
Abolishing copyright would be a good idea in my opinion, but it wouldn't make proprietary software open source.
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quadrangle 3991 days ago
Abolish patents and copyright and mandate source-release for published works along with prohibition of DRM
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