Sinabro

Well, this is it. I no longer support RMS’s crusade.

According to Stallman, the Pirate Party’s proposal of a five-year limit on copyright would remove the freedom users have to gain access to source code by eventually allowing its inclusion in proprietary products. Stallman suggests requiring proprietary software to also release its code within five years to even the balance of power.”

Somehow, I had always believed that RMS and, by extension, FSF’s goal was to limit the destructive power of copyright in software business by using its own rules against itself. I had believed that, given the choice between strong, draconian copyright, with GPL taking all its power from the same law, and having no copyright at all for software (or something very short like 5 years), RMS and FSF would choose the latter.

I was wrong. I have said before (not here, ‘probably on Slashdot) that if I ever find out that RMS’s (and, by extension, FSF’s) position was pro-copyright (even if it’s for strengthening copyleft), then I would stop supporting him. This is it.

I do, in general, like free software and will continue to use it, but as a political force I am opposed to the free software movement, now that I know for sure that the movement is led by a statist liberal whose central agenda is forcing others to his will (i.e. forcing proprietary software authors to release the source code, even if they didn’t use any copyleft codes).

As one of the immediate consequences, my FSF associate membership will not be renewed at the end of this month.

P.S. I had been getting fairly annoyed with RMS’s bashing of libertarians (I count Gov. Palin as one, although she may not know that yet) and capitalists (insurance companies and banks) recently anyway. He had, before this, the merit of … being seen as having the right opinions and position on one issue I deeply care about (copyright), but apparently I was wrong about that.

Edit: After all, there is no reason to force arbitrary obligation upon proprietary software authors. Just as the way original patents worked, copyright can be a two-way street. If the authors want copyright protection, they can submit the source code along with copyright registration (as apparently they already have to do, at least for small programs), and this will be public record once the work passes into public domain. If they want to keep the source code secret, then they can do it the same way it’s done in every other industry: keep it a trade secret and don’t tell it to anyone, including the copyright office (and since it was never “published”, it won’t be under copyright protection).

The very first thing we should do with this copyright mess is probably requiring copyright registration (say, within 1 year of original publication, as is done with patents) for copyright protection. If it wasn’t worth registering, then it’s not worth protecting.