Linux World domination (was Re: [NCLUG] PC for Linux (Ubuntu))

[Chad Perrin]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 06:52:33PM -0600, Grant Johnson wrote:
> 
> >
> >When I go buy a video game I am supporting Proprietary close source 
> >software - and I have no problems whatsoever with this and do not feel 
> >compelled to seek to end this practice.
> >
> >
> There is nothing wrong with proprietary software as long as you realize 
> that it is a rental.   Without the code you don't own it, so don't build 
> the core of your business on it.  Like leasing a car.   Nothing wrong 
> with that, but since I want to drive it until it has 300,000 miles, and 
> the wheels fall off, I want to own it.   I don't have to keep paying 
> that way.   I pay once, then I am free to maintain as I please.

That was disappointing.  I agreed with you whole-heartedly in that first
sentence, then ran into a wall with your second.

Without the code, you don't own *the code*.  This is not the same as not
owning the *software*.  If you possess an executable binary free of legal
entanglements, you own *the executable binary software*.  If you possess
source code free of legal entanglements, you own *the source code*.
These are *not* the same thing.

In short, you don't have to possess source code to own software.

However . . .

Barring explicit contractual agreements made prior to the applicability
of their terms, the law should not prevent ownership of what one
possesses.  That means that if I buy a box with a CD in it containing the
installer for an OS, and nobody made me sign (or even read) a contract
before purchase, the contents of the box are mine, damn it.  Copy,
distribute, sell, modify, melt in your furnace, use for skeet shooting
when your clay pigeons run out, whatever.  It's yours.

If that includes the source code, the same applies to the source code.
If it doesn't, tough -- you only get the binaries.  You still own what
you bought.

. . . in a perfect world.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ]
Larry Wall: "Just don't create a file called -rf."
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