Re:Proprietary Software Is Often Malware
by DougN7 on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:18AM
(#26010831)
Of all the possible things that might be expected, why is a copy of the source code the thing that stands out. If it’s on my machine why shouldn’t I expect excellent documentation, or configuration support, or build help, or features as I request them? What makes the source code and only the source code the exact thing I should expect?
> So if someone says "I won't give you X software unless you pay Y dollars" that is fine
How can you say that though if someone can just get a copy from a peer without paying you? People just go around the paywall and grab a free copy without payment which is why DRM exists at all. So then I make it so the software has to connect to a server to check if you've paid for it, and now suddenly that's mistreating the user?
Re:Proprietary Software Is Often Malware
by ethanwillis on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @11:32PM
(#26010633)
Having software connect to a server to check if you've paid for it is still allowed. You just have to provide source code. However, you don't have to provide the source code for the software running on the remote server.
Re:Proprietary Software Is Often Malware
by ethanwillis on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @11:34PM
(#26010644)
In either case this is all a moot point because you don't have to go full GNU to provide source code to paying customers. This still happens in some enterprise situations with contracts in place to assign legal liability for sharing the code for free to other people while still respecting the freedom of the software users to have access to the source code.
So if someone says "I won't give you X software unless you pay Y dollars" that is fine
However if they do pay the expectation is they also get access to the source code if they're running the software on their own machine (depending on which license we're talking about of course)