osOpinion: Abolished Copyright will Kill Open Source

[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]

“Moliere once said “More men die of their remedies than their
diseases.”Les Brunswick’s column”Why Copyright should be Abolished”
is one of those remedies Moliere had in mind.”

“I had, frankly, intended to write something else first. But
every time I saw this column’s headline, it inspired me. Perhaps
addressing these very good issues Mr. Brunswick has raised can help
shed some light on this crucial issue….”

“Open Source depends on Copyright Law for its teeth. If Les
would carefully read the GNU Public License, this would become
clear. First, an Individual (say, Linus Torvalds, or Richard
Stallman) copyrights a work. Then the decision is taken to release
under GPL, which refers back to the original copyright rights to
enforce the GPL provisions.”

“Think this through. If Copyright is ignored, dismissed, or
abolished, there is no enforcement of this tool for Intellectual
Property. The ability to police the GNU Public License, without
this essential tool, becomes powerless and ineffectual. If
there is no copyright law to refer back to, no Judge is going to
listen long to arguments in support of the GPL.”

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