[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Edison Carter]

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Richard Stallman <rms at gnu.org> wrote:
> CC-BY is a free noncopyleft license.
> CC-BY-SA is a free copyleft license.

and CC-BY-NC is a non-free licence.

I'm not sure what the official Pirate position on this is though,
since generally pirates support copyright as an 'industrial
regulation'. What we're asking for is that all works effectively
become CC-BY-NC as the least-permissive default. So why do Pirates
favour Free software and not just settle for 'gratis' proprietary
software? Or am I mistaken and most pirates don't really care about
free software?


> Proprietary software tramples the users' freedom, so it is bad.
> That is a very brief statement of a position.

Is this the Pirate Party position or only the FSF position?

My understanding of Pirate Party position on DRM is that it tramples
user freedom and should be illegal. Do we take the same position on
proprietary software? Do we want to have a consistent position on all
things that trample user's freedom?


Another possible position on DRM is that it's in the same category as
proprietary software (tramples user freedom) and that they both should
just have no special consideration in law. Violating an EULA,
reverse-engineering MSFT Office or whatever, should not be illegal in
itself, and neither should bypassing DVDCSS. (And you can still do
whatever you like with GPL code in your own home, the law wouldn't
change this)

But selling unauthorised copies of a DVD, or Microsoft Office, or
GPL-violating router firmware would all be treated equally under the
law, as copyright violations and nothing more.


Just throwing some ideas out there to ponder over.