From kragen@dnaco.net Thu Aug 27 08:34:37 1998 Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 08:34:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: Ray Jones cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: "University-style" vs "Berkeley" licenses In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 1484 Status: O X-Status: On 27 Aug 1998, Ray Jones wrote: > i am not concerned with the legal arguments regarding enforcability of > BSD-style licenses. my statements were judgements based on my own > moral views, which are not based on laws. i think it is morally wrong > to violate an author's wishes regarding the use of their work with > only a profit-motive as justification. With Thomas Jefferson and the US Constitution, I do not believe that authors have any natural right to control the use of their work, except to be acknowledged as its author and to not have it used in despicable ways. We have set up copyright laws establishing authors' rights to control certain uses of their work in order to encourage more people to spend more time as authors, in the expectation that they would be able to get money through copyright, rather than through, say, patronage. I believe we have a moral obligation to observe the law. Absent that obligation, I believe our only obligations with regard to the creative works of others are to properly credit the original author. So I do not believe it is morally wrong to violate an author's wishes regarding the use of their work, unless doing so also means breaking the law. (To answer the obvious question: yes, I do drive under the speed limit. Well, most of the time. :) > however, ignoring the licenses of open source works rather than, for > instance, microsoft, strikes me as attacking those you should be > allying with (...if that were your POV). Well, there's certainly the human-relations aspect. If you violate someone's express requests with regard to their work, they may not be very cooperative if you need help from them in the future. Kragen -- Kragen Sitaker We are forming cells within a global brain and we are excited that we might start to think collectively. What becomes of us still hangs crucially on how we think individually. -- Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web