News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Voice.ai: GPL Violations with a Side of DRM. Parent comment

Re:Voice.ai: GPL Violations with a Side of DRM by leni536 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:12AM (#34689696)
I'm not sure. If software copyright didn't exist, then source code would still be treated as trade secret. Code obfuscation would be used to make reverse engineering harder and source code wouldn't be provided, which is not a lot of change for proprietary software. In addition, copyleft and free software attributions would not exist without a framework of enforcment. A clear loss for free software.

Free software, apart from some very permissive licenses, requires copyright to exist.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Voice.ai: GPL Violations with a Side of DRM by realusername on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @06:55AM (#34691570)
Copyright isn't the only way to organise sofware, mandatory laws to open the code could exist as well.

You are right that regulations need to exist for free software to exist but copyright isn't necessary one of them.

[ Parent | on HN ]