Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (now Block), sparked a weekend’s worth of debate around intellectual property, patents, and copyright, with a characteristically terse post declaring, “delete all IP law.”

X’s current owner Elon Musk quickly replied, “I agree.”

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    No, the GPL very much requires copyright to work. The whole point is copyleft, which obligates changes to the code remain under the same license and be available to everyone.

    Without copyright, companies just wouldn’t share their changes at all. The whole TIVO-ization clause in the GPL v3 would be irrelevant since TIVO can very much take without giving back. Copyright is very much essential to the whole concept of the GPL working.

    Just think, why would anyone want to use Linux if Microsoft or Apple could just bake Linux into their offering?

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        5 days ago

        If copyright didn’t exist then everything would be in the public domain and the GPL would be toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.

        I’m saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.

        If it was just about ensuring the source is free, the MIT license would be sufficient. The GPL goes further and forces modifications to also be free, which relies on copyright.

        • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          I’m saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.

          Which would make GPL toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.