Re: [libreplanet-discuss] What do you think about the FSF using/endorsing nonfree cultural works?

[Aaron Wolf]

On 02/18/2016 09:02 AM, Ineiev wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 08:17:33AM -0800, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> On 02/17/2016 11:23 PM, Ineiev wrote:
>>
>>> Trademarks only work when registered per-country; more important,
>>> they imply a product to be sold. the GNU GPL is not sold
>>> in any reasonable sense; in fact, the GNU project denies that
>>> (free) software should be treated like a product.
>>>
>>
>> I wish that were more explicitly true because "product" in the market
>> generally refers to private goods (or to exclusive "club goods") and
>> free software is a public good (non-exclusive, non-rivalrous). However,
>> GNU definitely does *not* deny the idea of treating free software like a
>> product.
> 
> I think it does,
> 
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#DigitalGoods
> 

It's a mixed message. I agree that "digital goods" sounds too similar to
physical goods. GNU definitely doesn't think we should pretend that
software is rivalrous.

>> It explicitly says that selling copies of GNU software is fine
>> and that used to happen commonly when getting copies meant sending
>> someone a physical disk.
> 
> Copies on phisical media may be goods; software should not.
> 

While RMS and GNU would agree that thinking of software as being like
physical goods is bad, I just wanted to be clear that GNU and RMS
definitely do *not* think that there's something fundamentally wrong
about selling copies of free software. They have yet to come out as
actually opposed to that. In fact, acceptance of "selling copies" of
free software is something RMS brings up whenever people wrongly attack
GNU as being anti-commercial.

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