At 12:08 am +0100 9/6/99, James Gasson wrote: >Andrew Collier wrote: >> But even if he were, the situations are entirely asymmetric. The >> copyright-owners of the games will suffer financial loss due to >> piracy. Allan Skillman would not suffer financial loss due to the >> distribution of SimCoupe Win32. >> >> Simon can mend the damage by starting to distribute his own source. >> You can't mend damage by undistributing pirated games. > > >I would disagree about the situations being asymmetric.
I agree with _most_ of what you said. Breaking any law or legal agreement is not acceptable. I'm certainly not advocating that Simon should deliberately breach the GPL. However - I still don't accept that distributing a bunch of pirated games is comparable to not distributing source for a new version of SimCoupe. Certainly I don't think that it could ever be an appropriate reaction, as Thomas was perhaps suggesting. Distributing pirated games will have a detrimental effect on the entire Sam community, including those who use real hardware as well as emulation. Any change in the distribution of the emulator can naturally effect only those who use the emulator. (Strictly speaking, I suppose that any change in part of the community may have a knock-on effect on the rest of the community, but I would consider this at most a second order effect). Besides, Si isn't breaking GPL, as he isn't distributing a binary. And the GPL is flawed anyway - Si might assert that his code to interface to Win32 instead of Linux is a differentiable work, in which case the GPL doesn't need to cover it. Anyway, none of this changes the fact that the Linux source was, is, and will in future still be available. > Simply put, if the >copyright system weren't in place, noone would pay for any software, and >it wouldn't get written. I disagree, look at Linux. Or indeed, any piece of free software (I mean zero-cost "Freeware" as well as open-source Free software.) These don't depend on copyright laws, but people still write it. >And finally, yes the dammage could be _partially_ mended by distributing >the source after the event (there is still the setback in progress >caused by the source not being made available sooner). Fair enough. >But in the same >way, the loss to commercial software vendors could be _partially_ mended >by (as you say) undistributing the commercial software -- or to be more >precise, by convincing the person/people who recieved pirated software >from you to dispose of it. No - you *cannot* "undistribute" the pirated games. In all likelyhood they were uploaded to an anonymous ftp server, and it won't be possible to trace the people who downloaded it. Once people have got it, they're got it. The damage is done, and can't be undone. >P.S. I like open source, especially gcc and ghostscript. I like Open Source, but I don't like GPL. It is flawed, sometimes rather loosely defined, and doesn't give the original programmer enough rights, eg to make a distinction between an official and non-official distribution. It is probably the most restrictive "freedom" I've come across, free in only the exact way that loony Richard Stallman has chosen to define it (his philosophy seems to be that any programmer who ever distributes a non-GPL program is scum, and Deserves To Have His Program Pirated).... Personally I think that (under most circumstances) the programmer should be allowed to distribute his own code under whatever terms he likes. The sort of people who distribute GPL code at the moment, would probably continue to do so - even if they are forced not to. But it might just encourage other people to develop software; people who are currently scared off by the infectious GPL, but would happpily distribute under weaker terms. The sooner the world stops using the GPL and replaces it with a more sane scheme, the better IMHO. Andrew -- | Andrew Collier | email [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Talk sense to a | Part 2 NatSci | http://carou.sel.cam.ac.uk/ | fool and he +----------------+----------------ICQ:38645805-+ calls you foolish | Selwyn College Student Computer Support Team | -- Euripides
