(2023-05-12) cp != mv, or the 9001th post about copyright and copyleft
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I didn't want to write about this. I really didn't. But it looks like I have
no other choice.
As long as I am dependent on third-party hosting, I can't, for instance, just
copy the binaries of the Timendus' CHIP-8 test suite 4.0 into my repo
without having to rehost their Octo source code. Because GPLv3. And Drew can
remove my repo because of this, since practical sense doesn't matter to him.
And the fact that Octo is an assembler-as-a-service (that can go down
anytime, so any source codes written in it will become unbuildable unless
someone makes a full backup of that webpage) doesn't matter either. The
question is: does this sound like freedom to you?
To me, it sounds even sillier than the copytards' statements that EULA offers
any protection. Let me tell what I think of them, by the way. First, being
able to reverse-engineer the details that really matter had never been
stopped by any EULA. Second, copying information doesn't remove it from its
original place. Third, if you need a large "DO NOT COPY OR WE'LL PUNISH YOU"
sign to just be able to sell a single result of your work again and again,
then your work is worthless in the first place and deserves to be pirated.
Because, besides donations, really good product owners receive most of their
money for professional support and regular updates that offer new useful
features, i.e. for real work, not for selling thin air in the form of
licensing keys and the right to copy once and launch on a single machine.
The subscription model is an even worse form of the same slavery. Better to
avoid such software altogether.
GPL neckbeards are on the other extreme end of the same scale. The
anti-freedom they introduce doesn't mostly touch end users though, but it
touches creators and modders. Again, if a GPL-based algorithm is used in
some proprietary software, no one can prove its presence there because no
one has the source code. And if a GPL-based algorithm, in a (slightly)
rewritten form, is used in some public domain software where no one can
claim the authorship (by definition of the public domain), what can they do
with this? But the more important question is, why would they even attempt
to do anything with this? Isn't it better for users AND creators to have
more freedom? If no, which agenda are they pursuing? Why are they forcing
everyone to increase entropy and waste precious energy resources on
rehosting gigabytes of the same source code every time they want to make a
small modification in their derivative works? Does this really help to make
the world a better place or just serves to scratch some leftist ego in the
shape "we suffered to host this, so must everyone else"?
You know, there is a reason I put all my personal projects (the ones that I
can publish) into public domain, and also started learning programming
languages that have non-GPL primary/reference implementations (preferably
public domain or its equivalent too). Because I'm allergic to any freedom
restrictions, whatever side they come from.
And yes, remember, cp != mv. Sell your real work, not air or egos.
