Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/04/10/gpl-not-end-in-itself.html

I was amazed to be involved in yet another discussion recently
regarding the old debate about the scope of the GPL under copyright law.
The debate itself isn’t amazing — these debates have happened
somewhere every six months, almost on cue, since around 1994 or so.
What amazed me this time is that some people in the debate believed that
the GPL proponents intend to sneakily pursue an increased scope for
copyright law. Those who think that have completely misunderstood the
fundamental idea behind the GPL.

I’m disturbed by the notion that some believe the goal of the GPL is to
expand copyrightability and the inclusiveness of derivative works. It
seems that so many forget (or maybe they never even knew) that copyleft
was invented to hack copyright — to turn its typical applications
to software inside out. The state of affairs that software is
controlled by draconian copyright rules is a lamentable reality;
copyleft is merely a tool that diffuses the proprietary copyright
weaponry.

But, if it were possible to really consider reduction in copyright
control over software, then I don’t know of a single GPL proponent who
wouldn’t want to bilaterally reduce copyright’s scope for software. For
example, I’ve often proposed, since around 2001, that perhaps copyright
for software should only last three years, non-renewable, and that it
require all who wished to distribute non-public-domain software to
register the source with the Copyright Office. At the end of the three
years, the Copyright Office would automatically publish that now
public-domain source to the world.

If my hypothetical system were the actual (and only) legal regime for
software, and were equally applied to all software — from the
fully Free to the most proprietary — I’d have no sadness at all
that opportunities for GPL enforcement ended after three years, and that
all GPL’d software fell into the public domain on that tight schedule,
because proprietary software and FLOSS would have the same treatment.
Meanwhile, great benefit would be gained for the freedom of all software
users. In short, GPL is not an end in itself, and I wouldn’t want to
ignore the actual goal — more freedom for software users —
merely to strengthen one tool in that battle.

In one of my favorite films, Kevin Smith’s Dogma, Chris
Rock’s character, Rufus, argues that it’s better to have ideas than
beliefs, because ideas can change when the situation does, but beliefs
become ingrained and are harder to shake. I’m not a belief-less person,
but I certainly hold the GPL and the notion of copyleft firmly in the
“idea” camp, not the “belief” one. It’s
unfortunate that the entrenched interests outside of software are (more
or less) inadvertently strengthening software copyright, too. Thus, in
the meantime, we must hold steadfast to the GPL going as far as is
legally permitted under this ridiculously expansive copyright system we
have. But, should a real policy dialogue open on the reduction software
copyright’s scope, GPL proponents will be the first in line to encourage
such bilateral reduction.