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University Challenge (Announce)

posted by kerravon E-mail, Ligao, Free World North, 25.03.2022, 23:55

> > > Then are you able to explain how putting code in the public domain
> > somehow
> > > magically makes it more able to "compete with Microsoft"? Or is it
> just
> > an
> > > artificial requirement you are imposing on yourself?
> > You answered this question yourself.
>
> Well, I would like to hear your explanation, in your own words.
>
> Because right now, as far as I can tell, your "reasoning" boils down to
> "public domain is good and makes code more competitive, because I have very
> strong emotions".
I didn't use the phrase "more competitive". Why
don't you quote something I actually said? I'm
not sure what that actually means.

Perhaps a better approach would be for you to tell
me what a "hypothetical" company could do if someone
released their code as public domain instead of
copyrighted under some virus license.

Whatever that company could do is what I want to
see happen.

> > Here you have answered your own question.
> > You don't like the idea of companies using your
> > code without you having any say over it. That's
> > not freedom of use.
>
> We have seen
> what
> happens when for-profit companies rely on code written by volunteers
> without paying back anything in kind.
That is a problem with copyrighted freeware. What
I am interested in is a company picking up some
public domain code as a BASE, something that "mostly
works", and then taking ownership of it, making sure
it passes their own stringent tests (the sort of
effort you are alluding to with "paying back"), and
then commercially protecting that by making it closed
source, and stamping their own reputation on it.

> No, the outcome of all this is not
> "freedom". The outcome is exploitation of developers, and
> poorly-maintained software that has security vulnerabilities:
Copyrighted code is not "freedom" any more than
slaves under a communist dictator were "free" as
their dictators insisted.

And it is not "exploitation" if someone chooses to
donate their free time to write code. No-one forced
them to do that. If they consider that to be
exploitation they should go to the beach instead.

BTW, I assume I am one of those people being "exploited"
because I wrote public domain code?

> (And all this even though OpenSSL is not public domain. The exact same
> problem would be exacerbated if OpenSSL were public domain.)
No, the problem would not be exacerbated.

> All this is established, well-known history. So again, why would it be a
> Great Good for a hypothetical for-profit company to simply cash in on
> someone else's work?
They are technically only cashing in on whatever
value they have added.

And as per the link I gave you, if you think there
is enormous profits to be made by "cashing in" on my
public domain code - go right ahead and make billions
of dollars profit. You can then choose to build a
luxury yacht, or start a charity, or give me some of
it. It is entirely your choice and good luck with
whatever you choose.

BFN. Paul.

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