[pp.int.general] Fwd: <nettime> Richard Stallman: How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software

[Philip Hunt]

2009/7/30 Pasi Palmulehto <scoffer at kofeiini.riippuvuus.net>:
>
>
>> I like it as well but it feels very problematic. It couldn't be forced
>>     only for commercial software
>>
>> Yes it could.
>
> It would need to be almost world wide solution since it's always easy to
> boycott some countries.

If a proprietary software firm decided to boycott some countries by
refusing to sell its software in them, then those countries could
simply state that copying the software, since it's not for sale,
amounts to non-commercial copying which would be legal. So any company
trying that tactic would fail.

> Also forcing just doesn't feel comfortable, if
> such databank would be formed, it should be encouraged with benefits,
> not with penalties. For example open source would always have 10 years
> of protection, proprietary code would have 5 years and if the code is
> published, it would get the same 10 years total. (This fits finnish
> plan, we have told we want to shorten commercial copyright to 5-10
> years).

Something like that seems reasonable to me.

> Law should not prefer licenses over others

The purpose of law is to favour behaviour that hleps others and
disfavour behaviour that harms others; in this way law incentivises
people to do the right thing. That's why muder is illegal, for
example.

Software under a FOSS license helps people more than the same software
under a proprietary license. Therefore I see no problem in principle
if the law favours FOSS.

-- 
Philip Hunt, <cabalamat at googlemail.com>
Campaigns Officer / Press Officer, Pirate Party UK