Re: [Fsuk-manchester] RMS on Swedish Pirate Party vs Free Software

[Pater Mann]

Simon Ward wrote:
> All software, regardless of how it is licensed during the
> copyright term, should become free to the public.

I have always been a great supporter of FOSS and have made
contributions to several free and open-source projects over the years.
(Mainly small contributions I admit but, hey, I have a paid job and a
life outside computing!) I also strongly believe that free software
should be protected such that it will always remain free software and
cannot be exploited by commercial companies for their own gain but,
having spent approaching 30 years programming commercial software, I
have to question that statement, especially as we are discussing a
copyright term of only 5 years. THe FSF may be deem it heresy to say
so and I certainly do not wish to be seen as a troll, especially in my
first post to this list, but if I as a company or an individual have
spent a lot of time and money developing a piece of software, why
should I then be forced to simply give it away? I can see no moral or
ethical imperative for doing so.

To give an example. For a previous company, I wrote an EDI translator
which was used in most of the company's products. This was a piece of
software that is only of interest to businesses (only large companies
use EDI) so the only result from releasing the source would be to make
it much more difficult for the company to recoup its costs in
developing it - the software would be of no use to the "public".
Therefore I cannot agree that *all* software should become free.

patermann