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

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Billy Crook <billycrook at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So, after this law, what would be the correct way to protect my free
>> code from some big company making money on it?
>
> Let's dissect that:
> "protect my free code"  Is it under attack?
> "from some big company making money on it"  Oh, I see.  If someone
> else makes money, your code disappears from your hard drive, or gets
> corrupted.  No, wait.  It doesn't.  How does someone else' good
> fortune hurt you?  Is it not selfish to take that away from others for
> no reason?
>
> FREE SOFTWARE, by definition, welcomes anyone to make money on it so
> long as they pass down the same rights to their customers as well.
> That's one of the most important things about free software.  Without
> few companies could ever have adopted GNU/Linux.
>
> If you'd like to prevent your code from being of any financial use to
> anyone else, the "best" thing you can do is not distribute it.  Second
> to that, you can use a destructive license like one of the
> non-commercial creative commons licenses.  I fail however, to see what
> good comes of specifically spiting commercial use.
>


I have no problem with my code being of financial use to others. What
I would have a problem is for company A to take my code and modify and
distribute it , and not return the enhancements.

Currently, I can have that by choosing an appropriate license for
free. But now it seems that I would have to pay to do this.


-- 
Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine
( www.pembo13.com )