Re: [Fsfe-uk] Young Greens moving on FS

[Lee Braiden]

Mark Preston wrote:

> Hi Lee,
> You are almost certainly correct when you state that "many Free 
> Software folks are quite happy with Copyright". The Gnu GPL would not 
> be necessary if there was no copyright laws that could be infringed. 
> The Gnu project could happily continue IMHO if copyright laws were 
> abolished.

Mark, you're covering DMCA and the applicability of limited distribution 
in modern society pretty well, but I think you're confusing the issue 
with that of copyleft.

Copyleft depends on copyright law, and uses in a different way, to 
specifically guarantee some *extra* rights to users.  Those rights would 
not exist, in a public domain work, or in a work devoid of any copyright 
restrictions.  So, while open development and open content could perhaps 
continue in *some* form, Free Software and its ideological goals could 
not, until some other means of ensuring those extra rights was developed.

- Lee.