Re: [Skim-app-users] Skim on the Mac App Store?

[Patrik J. <pat...@fa...>]

Hi Peter,

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Peter Rich <pet...@by...> wrote:
> The reason that so many of us find this "developer's" behavior to be
> despicable is that he clearly is trying to profit off of someone else's
> hard-earned work without so much as a nod to those who did the work.  Their
> reason for making the software "free" is so that it can be the best software
> possible (that's my guess, anyhow), and anyone who wants to contribute to
> its progress may do so.  When this developer can't be bothered to so much as
> change the graphic, it communicates that the evolution of the product is not
> what's on his mind.  It then becomes incumbent upon us to warn anyone who
> would purchase such software that the developer has behaved unscrupulously.
> If I suspected a developer had done next to nothing with a product s/he is
> selling, I would run away quickly, as I would doubt any concerns or support
> needs would be met, should they arise in the future.
>
> I find Patrik's comments to be both enlightening and problematic.  They are
> enlightening because it highlights that there are a lot of enterprising
> folks out there that don't believe there is a problem with such behavior if
> the law allows it.  Surprisingly, these people often make what many see as
> "good" businessmen.  This is problematic because it is exactly that attitude
> that leads to the decline of civilization.  Some believe their morals need
> only go so far as what society deems to be ethical and puts into law.  That
> is a dangerous attitude because it suggest that we need to depend on
> government to regulate all our rights and wrongs.  Laws are clearly needed,
> as people's beliefs about what is right/wrong are going to differ, and we
> need a clear protocol for how to operate in and regulate society so people
> know what to expect and how to interact with each other.  But if we go no
> further in our treatment of each other, society quickly degenerates into a
> "me-first" society.  Laws are only needed to regulate people who refuse to
> regulate themselves.  I tell this to my children all the time.  If they
> cannot control their temper toward each other, someone else will have to
> control it for them—and that just introduces restrictions, the opposite of
> freedom.
>
> So, yes, Patrik, you are right; there are people who will take advantage of
> others.  In my experience living in 4 different countries, though, I have
> seen entire societies that believe if you can take advantage of another and
> you don't, then you are a fool.  Funny thing is, those are the societies
> that I never see progress.  They end up in a constant cycle of corruption
> and the introduction of stricter laws and enforcement.  Morality transcends
> laws and leads to greater freedom.  Abuse of trust leads to more
> restrictions and slows progress.

Please be careful in what opinions you attribute to me. Nowhere did I
say that I agreed with this behavior. In fact, I think it's clearly on
the sleazy side even if he had complied with the license terms. What I
said was that it was not unexpected and not worth getting upset about.
People do things I disagree with all the time, behave as assholes when
driving, taking advantage of the situation, etc, but I have no control
over them and the only thing that happens if I get upset over it is
that I raise my blood pressure and heighten my stress level. Nothing
positive will happen. The same applies here. We take action to the
copyright violation, decide if the license should be changed, and move
on. (This is an appropriate place to insert a well-known XKCD link:
http://xkcd.com/386/)

I also disagree with your opinion that people should be bound by the
feelings of the original authors. I'm not even close to libertarian,
but in this instance I agree with Stallman: Software is not free (as
in freedom) if the users are implicitly bound by whatever feelings the
original authors have (and when such feelings are not spelled out in
the license it's even impossible to expect that people should know
what they are).

As for whether we want the license to be changed, I think a common
complaint from free software advocates is that the BSD license
*allows* redistribution without source and under different terms. This
exactly means that you can "profit off of someone else's hard-earned
work" in a completely different way compared to for example the GPL
where you can only redistribute the software under the same license.
For this reason, the software that I've put countless hours into is
GPL, precisely because while I want people to use it, I do not want
them to change the terms so that their enhancements will not benefit
others.  For this reason, if there is a discussion about changing the
license, my vote is for the GPL.

Regards,

/Patrik