Semi-OT: Congress about to limit artists' copyright rights

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Fri, 5/30/08, Billy Crook <billycrook at gmail.com> wrote:

> > This seems to mean that developers will have to pay to
> > create open source software.
> 
> No.  They will have the option of paying if they want to
> sue people for damages resultant of infringing.  If they 
> make money on their software themselves, they can afford 
> to register it.  If they do not, there aren't any damages 
> from someone else making money.

Are you seriously sitting there claiming that there aren't any damages to you for someone else getting your paycheck after you've done all the work?

The open source developers, or so I've heard one GPL developer put it, trade their effort to you in exchange for you not selling their "free" product for the money they could have made selling their own product.  Their lost income is by choice, in exchange for you not getting their income instead of them.