Cymro

Didn't say it was, I cited antitrust laws as an example of legislation put in place to protect consumers. There are also laws against price fixing, price gouging, selling certain products etc. The existence of copyright law technically counts as market interference too, BTW.

And I realise that, but to my knowledge there's been no ruling on this and it is something that should be considered. Coca Cola aren't obliged to release their recipe, but they are obliged to print the ingredients on the packaging.

Exactly, and in addition to the prohibitive licensing, locking people out of the innards of the software prohibits people from modifying their purchased product to suit their needs, like I said.

I've said no such thing, but what I have said is that if such a situation were to arise the people responsible would be caught and punished for it before it became a major threat to the business. If someone were to release a GNU version of Windows by using some or all MS code without having bought the right to do so (by buying as many copies of Windows from MS as they distribute), it'd still be piracy.

I'm not so sure. Yeah, there'd be a lot of people using and distributing it, but those would likely be the same people who use pirated copies of XP and are willing to do without the updates. The threat of being sued is also a nice deterrent, IMO. As you said, it's not giving people a blank cheque to go pirating if there are measures in place to prevent it even if they don't work 100%.

Compare it to the Music industry. There's nothing stopping me from recording a cover of or remixing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", but if I were to make money off of it I'd have to pay royalties to Courtney Love. (thus discouraging me from doing so :P)

As for spotting stolen code...by the time you've rewritten an algorithm so it works the same and looks different, you're talking about making your own version of the software. The thing is, there's thousands of different ways of doing the same thing, and with all the dependencies etc, changing the code enough so it's not easily spotted as plagarism becomes a pretty daunting task when you consider how big today's software is.

I can't say I'm up to scratch with patent law, but are you sure? I can't imagine any judge ruling against Toshiba for buying Sony players, slapping a Toshiba logo on them and selling them again (rather than copying the technology and manufacturing their own version for cheap). If you can be punished for buying something at full price from the manufacturer, modding it and selling it again (like many people do to cars), that's pretty fucked up.

__________________
"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Bean

Ok, I misread it. But even so, that legislation isn't just there to protect the consumers. It's there to protect the "sellers" as well. If legislation was out there specifically to help consumers, and none for the producers, innovation would come to a grinding halt.

Granted, but not in nearly invasive a way as what you're proposing. This protects not only the consumer from buying cheap knockoffs, it also protects the innovators. If you knew that no matter what you invented, or programmed, another company could take it and sell it with no credit to you, would you bother releasing anything?

And I think here's where the problem is. We keep comparing software to physical products. It's just not the same thing as we've both demonstrated. Software is closer to copyrights on literature than it is to Coke, or a Honda.


But that's what I'm saying, forcing a company to release it's source code is not something that the government should be able to do. Sure, in cases like the voting machines in the US it makes sense. It's in the interest of public "safety". But for commercial applications, it's just too invasive. And the easy response to software not suiting your needs.. well, buy software that does. Or write your own.


See that's an assumption made with a very biased logic. Remember the encryption keys for HD DVD? I think it was HD anyways.. Either way, those were released onto the web and despite the entire industry trying to get rid of them, I'm sure I could find the keys with one Google search. Same idea. It's just not reasonable to assume the people doing it would get caught quickly enough.

Yes, but if you didn't start making money on it, then chances are you'd get away with it for a significant amount of time. But that's a bad example anyways, nobody who wants to hear the original version of that song, is going to settle on a cover. They may like your version, but they still want the original. So again, if someone got the Windows SC and released it for free... a version that does the exact same thing as the original, and is free, THAT is a logical tradeoff. Kurt Cobain for you (no offense) isn't "getting the same basic thing".


No, I'm not sure about this either, but it doesn't matter cause it wouldn't be worth Toshibas time or effort to do it. They couldn't possibly compete price wise with Sony, because every sale Toshiba makes, puts alot more money in Sonys pocket. And there's no way they could sell for less than Sony and still turn a profit under that model.

But this is a great example of how patents protect innovations and new technology. Toshiba wouldn't manufacture their own version on the cheap, because they'd get nailed for patent violation. So even if they were stupid enough to buy whole machines from Sony, Sony is still going to make a bundle on what THEIR technology.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Cymro

And when a select few companies control an entire industry, leaving little or no room for a startup, that also grinds innovation to a halt because the market is essentially addicted to products from a single vendor who can choose to innovate as much or as little as they like with no risk to their overall market share.

And locks out any other innovators who want to innovate on top of someone else's innovation. It also locks out DIY repairs.

No, it's not, but it's still a consumer product, and just because it's different to other products doesn't mean it's above regulation.

Dude, I haven't fucking said that's what should happen. And I've also pointed out that this happens NOW. People sell unauthorised copies of software and other media all the time, without the source code being out there, but the market continues to thrive. I've also pointed out that in order to mask plagarism enough to get away with it on a large scale, you'd need to re-write so much of the code it would cease to be plagarism.

It may sound that way, but it isn't when you think about it.

And the same is true of all piracy. You made the argument yourself that piracy can never be stopped and that the measures are just there to discourage most people from doing it. The same can be done with SC. Most people don't know how or where to get warez and keygens, and those who do are still fearful of getting caught. That wouldn't change if measures were put in place to assure it.

But if they improved the product through some manner, some "innovation", perhaps, they could sell it for more than the cost of the original Sony product and that model would work. There are companies who actually do this.

Then we can simply compare it to selling a compilation album with the original Teen Spirit on it.

__________________
"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Bean

You seem to be getting too worked up over this. We're just having a discussion. Either way, you're not going to convince me that forcing companies to release SC is fair play.

And at the same time I'm not going to convince you that it's over-regulating a major industry.

So let's just leave it at that.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Cymro

I wouldn't say "too worked up", it did piss me off when you did that though, and I know you weren't trying. I get the distinct impression that you don't understand the finer points of what I'm imagining.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

__________________
"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Bean

You're probably right, there's probably something that's getting lost in the translation. After all, Welsh to Newfie is a tough translation.

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk