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Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by coliveira on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @11:29AM (#864349)
You touched on the biggest weakness of RMS point of view. If you write software, you have to fundamental right to make it free or not. If you are on the receiving end, you only have to agree with the terms. RMS turns the roles around, and wants to make the user the owner of everything.
Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by iambvk on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @12:16PM (#864483)
"""If you are on the receiving end, you only have to agree with the terms."""

This is where I see a problem.

Can somebody suppress my rights (to share, to sing, etc.), in the form of terms? Is a right is something that I can trade?

I don't understand these issues much, just doubts :-(

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by cschwarm on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @04:23PM (#865129)
> Can somebody suppress my rights (to share, to sing, etc.), in the form of terms?

You're making some fundamental logical errors here.

Your first premise is that you have these rights. But where's your rationale for that?

The simple truth is that you only have these rights if the objects under consideration are yours. But you have no right to share my books. You have no right to share my house. You have no right to share my property. And you have no right to sing my song.

Unless I give you my permission to do so, of course.

So, your first premise is wrong.

Your second premise is that it's suppression if you were not given all possible permissions. But you agreed to the terms with a free will. No one forced you to do that. No one pointed a gun to your head telling you what to do. In fact, you are free to do the same work I have done to author the work, in the first place.

So, your second premise is also wrong.

I don't know what your conclusion is but it's probably wrong, too, because your premises are.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by iambvk on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @09:39PM (#865852)
If you are so certain about your understanding, good for you.

I was asking whether you can set terms that limit my rights? You are not government, right?

I don't think you understood my 2nd question at all.

No, as i said, I was not concluding anything.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by cschwarm on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @08:19AM (#866554)
I see. Sorry I misunderstood your intentions, then.

There are basically two contexts the word "right" is used: an moral and a legal context.

If the right you're talking about is an moral one, you surely can trade it. This happens all the time since people differ in moral judgements. For example, some may say you have a right to health. Assuming the premise is true, you can still "trade" it for the (subjective) benefit of smoking.

If the right you are talking about is a legal one, it depends on the law. I don't think, for example, that you could sell your right to vote. However, there are other rights you can sell. For example, copyright gives you certain rights that you may sell or trade.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by moron4hire on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @01:38PM (#864700)
What does the movie theater do to you when you enter BUT suppress your rights to sing/talk/shout/etc, on the terms that they will let you watch the movie? What does the military do to you BUT suppress your right to freely determine your life, on the terms that they will provide food, shelter, and training to you?
Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by joe_the_user on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @02:02PM (#864775)
Ah, but that's within a pretty limited domain.

If the movie theater also restricted your right to write a negative review afterwards, say, it would be a bit dicey.

Some contracts that suppress rights might be defensible BUT the point is that such contract are not apriori valid.

Indeed, your the military example shows the need for limits; there's a reason that only the state can operate with the contract you describe. If a private organization could do such a thing, there would serious trouble on many fronts (private armies = bad things).

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by moron4hire on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @02:09PM (#864790)
If a movie theater would want to restrict your rights to write a negative review, why would you attend that movie theater? If a contract is bad, you don't enter into it
Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by andreyf on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @12:14PM (#864478)
you have to fundamental right to make it free or not

False. You do NOT have the right to restrict what I do with "your" ideas, once you've shared them with me - be it software, sonnet, or poem. The government may limit my fundamental freedom by enforcing a limited-time monopoly, but only in order to encourage you to work on your ideas.

It is NOT your fundamental right to have such monopoly indefinitely.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by coliveira on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @10:04PM (#865882)
The issue is not the sharing of ideas, but sharing of how the software was made. It is more like saying: "if I buy your food, you have to give me the recipe or I will sue you." There is a huge difference between using gcc and knowing how it was created, for example.

Nobody is restricting you from creating a similar food or software (unless there is a patent, which is an entirely different issue). You have the right to create your version, and I have my right to sell only the product, not the process that made it.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by dtf on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @01:53PM (#864750)
Yet the maker of a software product can aid or hinder your ability to modify it by choosing to distribute as source or binary. That particular "right" requires no law.

I often wonder what RMS would do if he had the power to enact a law mandating that all software be free software - as a form of "positive liberty". Judging by his writings, I get the feeling he'd do it.

Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article by cschwarm on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @04:34PM (#865170)
Wrong. Copyright is about "works", not "ideas".

My copyright of a work doesn't restrict your ability to copy the idea. In fact, this is what many Open Source projects do: they copy the idea or a proprietary software, but not the software (ie. the work) itself.