Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!uwmcsd1!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Morality of copying software? (wasn't: Re: Back to Intellectual...)
Message-ID: <Jul.23.00.22.32.1988.26999@aramis.rutgers.edu>
Date: 23 Jul 88 04:22:33 GMT
References: <9160@cisunx.UUCP> <1801@uhccux.UUCP> <807@netxcom.UUCP> <826@dlhpedg.co.uk>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 25

In article <826@dlhpedg.co.uk>, cl@datlog.co.uk (Charles Lambert) writes:
> In article <1812@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
< <...
< <The answer to
< <"is it ok to copy software" falls out of this, but it is at a different
< <level.
< 
< To which BOB said something like "if it's illegal, it's not OK."  But that's
< inverting the question, BOB.  The question was "is is *moral* to copy
< software,"  and the law should embody morality, not dictate it.

Hardly.  Knowing the morality of the typical legislator, I would certainly
not ask them to use it as a basis for law.

It is hard to imagine any country in which religious freedom is
granted as being able to adopt the view that law will embody morality.

It would be interesting to see some one argue that to abstain from copying
software in a situation where it was illegal to do so would somehow prevent
them from going to heaven and thus although they be martyred by the act, 
they would find themselves forced to copy other people's software illegally.

You ask if it is moral to copy software -- I reply: is it moral to run
a red light?

---- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)