Free Software as a concept could not exist without copyright. Copyright is what allows the license to declare the terms under which a copy is permitted, including the provision that the source code ship with the binary form. (This is discussed in the commentary to the GPL.)
Despite the SaaS model under which many of us build, there is still a tremendous amount of packaged and distributed software that people use every day: your phone and its OS and apps, most computer OSes, databases, medical records, transportation, communications—the list goes on—that many of us work on to put food on the table.
Copyleft software couldn't exist. But all software would be free by default, because all source would be in the public domain, and all reverse compilation of binaries would produce public domain code.
Sure, but if all software is in the public domain, then the profit motive for developing software will be completely wiped out, and much less will be produced as a result. Software development be reduced to a hobby or developers will have to seek out patronage like artists did in the 1600s. That’s not a world that most of us want to return to.
Why do you think so much open source software is written, if you need a profit motive for software to be created?
Also, let's be real - human written (and therefore copyrightable) code is dying already. When the machines can write anything on demand, why do you need a profit motive?
> Why do you think so much open source software is written, if you need a profit motive for software to be created?
That's like asking why gardeners like to grow food and flowers in their backyards, or why hobbyists like to build furniture in their garages. Some people need a creative outlet. It doesn't mean that a lot of people won't grow food, flowers, or furniture for free, and that there's no demand for food, flowers, or furniture to be bought.
> When the machines can write anything on demand, why do you need a profit motive?
Machines still need humans to power them. They're like any other tools that need direction and guidance, by humans that possess the innate creativity.
Ok, but unlike hobby gardening, open source maintainers actually write the core software we all rely on. That's where the analogy falls over - the "hobbyists" are producing a sufficient bounty already, without a profit motive. A lot of them are paid employees of corporations, but those corporations often don't make profit on the open source software they contribute to either.
> Machines still need humans to power them. They're like any other tools that need direction and guidance, by humans that possess the innate creativity.
Yes but ideas are not copyrightable, only the fixed expression of those ideas in (in this case) written form. If the actual writing of the code is delegated entirely to machines, then software copyrights are dead.
Or have a universal income. Capitalism isn't inevitable. And it will end anyway, at it hits planetary limits. Better start thinking of alternatives before one of the worst ones gets imposed on us.
We had arts and sciences being funded long before copyright even existed. Your concern is not based in reality. If people want something to exist they will be willing to pay for its creation.
> But all software would be free by default, because all source would be in the public domain, and all reverse compilation of binaries would produce public domain code.
I am not aware of any open-source license which tries to approximate the "there is no copyright" situation:
- Such a license would not compulse you to publish the source code of any modification you make for it.
- Such a license would allow you to distribute compiled programs only.
- On the other hand, such a license must not restrict you to de-compile, modify or re-destribute any binaries built from the source code.
- But any such derivate of such a binary or source code would have to stay under the same license (this is a different kind of virality than "normal" viral licenses).
> In the current legal system, you can enforce restrictions on the usage of this binary [from a public domain source], and can forbid redistribution, reverse-engineering
IAAL and am pretty familiar with U.S. copyright law, and am curious where support for this proposition in the law is found. Can you provide sources, please?
I don't know the US law (I live in Germany), but the intuition is clear:
1. Take some CC0/public domain source code.
2. Build a binary out of it and sell licenses for your software.
Case study: SQLite's source code is public domain. On the other hand, it is embedded in many commercial software products that are sold - and you are not allowed to reverse-engineer the software or redistribute binaries of it. This would be possible/allowed in a no-copyright world.
Despite the SaaS model under which many of us build, there is still a tremendous amount of packaged and distributed software that people use every day: your phone and its OS and apps, most computer OSes, databases, medical records, transportation, communications—the list goes on—that many of us work on to put food on the table.