RE: [Fsuk-manchester] Copyright opinions

[Luke Taylor]

> From: address@hidden
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Copyright opinions
> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 13:34:42 +0000
>
> Simon Ward <address@hidden> wrote: [...]
> > If you are a developer, base your pricing on actually developing the
> > software, not on developing something once and expecting to sell it lots
> > of times to make your money back, which usually involves restricting
> > users’ freedoms in order to prevent them from using or modifying the
> > software they have and possibly locking them in so that developers can
> > monopolize further development of it.
>
> This is easier written than done. We try, but quite apart from the
> marketing something so different, it's getting gradually harder as
> protectionist laws further entrench the
> make-it-once/restrict-it/sell-it-lots model of new enclosures and
> exploitation, empowering copyright thugs to scare FOSS users.
>
> > Other ways are to offer services around your software. Support it,
> > maintain it, and charge for these efforts. Sell printed manuals, or
> > even traditional boxed copies (but when you do that, charge for the
> > production, with a little profit, not the development - there was
> > little, if any, development effort into the reproduction).
>
> The problem with that is that it requires developers to do less
> development and more maintenance and support (sometimes healthy!),
> manual-printing and box-arranging. It's not really good to have
> developers doing manual printing and boxing, so this means bringing
> non-developers into the software development company and diluting its
> mission. Or you could sign with a manual publisher. Either way, just
> as few manual producers understand free software development economics
> as understand free manual economics and it can lead to the manual
> and boxes effort corrupting the software development effort.
>
> Two other observaions on that:
>
> 1. many small-audience manuals have a non-trivial amount of
> development effort embodied in each copy produced, so the fairer way
> is to share the development cost across the low end sales estimate;
>
> 2. is it any more ethical to profiteer from manual production than
> software production?

Some great observations,

I think writing a manual and then forbidding derivatives is definitely comparable to writing software and forbidding derivatives. Overall I suspect that doing so with a manual is less harmful to society and community because a manual can be reproduced with far less effort than some complex software. I also suspect that doing this sort of thing with a manual is less damaging than forbidding works similar to one's fiction (a la Ms Rowling) because similar fiction can be (and has been) independently produced and then banned. There are only so many universal stories and themes to humanity and the essence of a fiction is far more wooly than the essence of a manual. Unless you are imitating a manual word-for-word I think it would be impossible to claim in court that your rival's manual is an unlicensed derivative and not just a different manual.

I am aware that I don't come down on either side here..

Luke

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