Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy

[JEDIDIAH]

On 2009-01-30, amicus_curious <ACDC@sti.net> wrote:
>
> "David Kastrup" <dak@gnu.org> wrote in message 
> 85k58d226h.fsf@lola.goethe.zz">news:85k58d226h.fsf@lola.goethe.zz...
>> "amicus_curious" <ACDC@sti.net> writes:
>>
>>> "David Kastrup" <dak@gnu.org> wrote in message
>>> 85ocxrkkfj.fsf@lola.goethe.zz">news:85ocxrkkfj.fsf@lola.goethe.zz...
>>>>
>>>> Try reading the GPL sometime.
>>>>
>>> Well, is it valid?
>>
>> That's entirely the choice of the recipient.  If he considers it
>> invalid, he does not have a license, and has to behave accordingly.  If
>> he considers it valid, he has a license granted under terms.  As long as
>> he heeds the terms, there is nothing to fear for him.
>>
> Well, that is your opinion certainly, but it begs the question.  Is there 
> any requirment to honor a copyright asserted for something that has no 
> commercial value?  Is such a copyright valid at all?
>
> It is much easier to see that source for something that has commercial 
> value, say Windows itself, is a protected work since the value is not 
> disputed.  But if it, like Linux, is not sold for a profit and, worse, the 

...which is entirely irrelevant to the issue.

[deletia]

>>> In any case, if the author chooses to give it away gratis, then the
>>> option of charging for it is no longer applicable.
>>
>> Huh?  If I compose and sing a lullaby to a child of mine, I no longer
>> have the option for charging someone else if he desires a performance or
>> a copy of the composition?
>>
>> How confused are you?
>>
> Not as confused as yourself, certainly.  Your singing a lullaby is almost 
> certainly without value and would not be much of an artistic "work" and 
> might not qualify as subject to copyright.  But regardless, your singing it 

In practice this is not the case at all.

It would be nice if every copyright required a registration and
someone willing to claim that it has some monetary value that
makes it worth the social baggage that comes with the ownership
of creative works. However, that's currently not the case and 
isn't likely to be anytime in the near future.

The people with the big bags of money don't seem to like the 
idea of giving a little bit of it up so that they can register
their cash cows.

-- 

        Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire,     
        is genuinely new: culture, like science and              |||
        technology grows by accretion, each new creator         / | \
        building on the works of those that came before.

                                 Judge Alex Kozinski
                                 US Court of Appeals
                                 9th Circuit