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World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

torrentfreak.com

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Re: World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

#4

Post by kurokikaze »

rick888 wrote: post #2

I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.

It's perfectly normal. Double standards are core of our society :)

Re: World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

#5

Post by Mark_B »

rick888 wrote: post #2

I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.

I think it's a lot like Robin Hood. Piracy is viewed in some ways as "rob from the rich and give to the poor" which people in general can get on board with. However, breaking the GPL would be more like the opposite. Instead, someone is seeking personal gain/fame (aka the "rich") vs the people who volunteered their time ("poor") and that's just not right.

Re: World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

#6

Post by maggit »

rick888 wrote: post #2

I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.

If you think of it as a question of ethics, not law, it's perfectly logical. That is; breaking the GPL does not make you a demon because you are breaking the law, but rather because you are being nasty to nice people. Illegally copying a movie is easier to accept, because it is easy to imagine that you are being nasty to the MPAA (if you are at all nasty).

Re: World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

#8

Post by Dementati »

rick888 wrote: post #2

I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.

The Pirate Party is not dedicated to piracy. It's dedicated to privacy and personal integrity, fighting the patent system and maintaining an open, free internet.

Re: World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden

#10

Post by cturner »

rick888 wrote: post #2

I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.

Depends whether you think of law as being the ultimate good, or something else.

If you had civil-rights objections to copyright then you'd perceive the GPL as a neat hack around it but be looking for something to destroy it.

Thinking about the rule of law as an ultimate good is a valid position.

I've actually tried this, and you get into contrived situations like this one: the boss shows you a four line perl script in use at a client site that another company wrote ten years ago, and asks you to modify it in a trivial way to solve an important problem. You'll respond that you aren't allowed to do that for breach of copyright - unless the client company specifically relinquished the code then the rights vest with them. Further, you will explain that you can now no longer write code to replicate the functionality of it because you have been influenced by having read the code of the client company.

Advocates of the rule of law should oppose laws that are selectively enforced, and absurdly complicated.

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