[plug] Re: "stealing"?

[Colin Muller]

> And this is the point. If you choose to use product someone has for
> sale without paying for it when you should have paid for it, you are
> reducing the income of that person.

As long as your world treats intellectual production that way, yes.
If it does not, no.

> Intellectual property is still property, whether or not the original
> physical disk is used to distribute it.

[and ...]

> IF we deny a copyright holder his/her intellectual rights, we need
> to otherwise reward him/her for their efforts.

My point is that these "rights" and this property-like characteristic
are conventions, not inherent qualities of intellectual production. My
inital post made it very clear that I recognise and respect these
conventions (I even use it in relation to my own work). Can you see
that conventions are all that they are?

Why does it matter, and particularly why is it worth discussing here?
Because Linux was built in a way which ignored the "reward" part of
the convention - the part some claim is an essential precursor to
intellectual work. The rewards which led to Linux were of a different
type (the title of Linus's biography give a clue).

> In a Marxist society,
> it would be according to need, for effort according to ability. I'm
> glad I don't live in such a society, the innovations we enjoy would
> not have been made!
> 
> I'm not sure if this is where you are coming from, but a Linux list
> is not the place for a socialist/capitalist debate.. That would be
> far better argued in the Modern History section of your favourite
> library..

Since you believe it doesn't belong here ... why are you introducing
it?

Colin