Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Gitlab and Gitorious (was Re: support me)

[Will Hill]

Maybe it's not enough to abolish copyright on non free software, but I think 
it's something we agree should be done.  It's a bad idea to abolish all 
copyright, because that's the only thing we have to protect the GPL.  There's 
solid ground to remove non free software from copyright.  It would help by 
depriving software owners revenue that ordinarily funds propaganda campaigns 
and other work against the community.

I'm not sure mandatory source code publishing will help.  Microsoft, for 
example, regularly open washes software without giving users real freedom.  
They do this to fool the public into trusting them. 

The real issue is one of public knowledge.  If people understood software 
freedom and how their computers were being used against them, they would 
demand free software.  

On Sunday 08 March 2015, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> The issue is: non-free software isn't non-free merely because of the
> copyright terms. It's non-free also because the source is rarely
> available. In order to have software freedom, it's not enough to ignore
> / abolish copyright on non-free software. We must also assure that the
> source is available in the preferred form for modification.