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Why Linus is Right and AI is Wrong
(raymyers.org)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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Programming
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Copyright is what Open Source makes work. The idea of Copyright itself is not bad and we have no better solution, only people ~~crying about~~ criticizing it. Also because one company cannot steal others work means, they have to come up with their own. Money is a good reason for people to do stuff and invent and work on it. This increases competition. What do you mean by "arbitrary"? If yo do any work, it is automatically protected under Copyright laws. And you can decide how you license it. There is no arbitrary about it.
Look at kitchen recipes. They have no copyright. Chefs and restaurants still make money. That's what I meant to arbitrary, they are the pillars to a made up scenario, or paradigm. You are answering from within, unable to see the alternative because without copyright capitalism would collapse. That was my point when comparing to nation states. I know I am parroting crazy thoughts, but I believe they are useful for creative rebellion and imagining a world that might as well be possible and perhaps even better. Copyright and competitiveness are not real good drivers for innovation, they're just the rules of the game. Another game, rooted on cooperation may as well determine different rules for winning and the very definition of success could be another one in such a social system..
Your recipes example is bad, because it is not an invention of creative act. I feel like people don't understand why Copyright even exist. The point is not that everything has to be Copyrightable. And those non related issues are not a reason for or against Copyright, because they are unrelated. Making money isn't even the only reason why Copyright exist.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
If there was no Copyright, then everyone can steal from everyone else. Why would anyone try hard to come up with something, build it out and sell it. Just so others steal it for free and destroy your shop because they have more money to advertise? And this makes Software licenses such as Open Source impossible. Maybe they make changes to the software code after stealing yours and make it proprietary. That means Microsoft could steal all Open Source software, make changes to them and built them into Windows. Then people depend on the variant from Microsoft. This undermines Open Source and would definitely destroy any competition to Microsoft.
There are many examples and reasons why Copyright is a good thing.
Are you British? Just kidding. But recipes do have a creative process. Chantilly cream was invented. Same as any other desserts or dishes. And parts of a recipe, like whipping cream, are reused throughout other recipes...
I won't argue on the remainder of your post because I rather just keep it as different world views. You have decided to defend copyright. We just disagree.
If recipes were copyrightable, then we couldn't sell anything on earth, because someone copyrighted it someday somewhere in the world. Recipes itself aren't creative work nor expressions of human thoughts, because everyone interprets (an expression) the recipe their way and is vastly different product. Writing a recipe is easy, there is no creativity needed either. I could write 1 million recipes and now they are mine and no one can use them if I don't allow? It does not depend which of the recipes make sense. See why this analogy does not hold up to other creative work which involves at least a little bit of creativity, such as characters or software code.
I didn't just decide to defend copyright, I just list why its needed and what positive effects it has. You just dismiss all the good reasons to have Copyright. Just ignore those parts if you got defeated and can't argue anymore. So should I stop discussing with people who disagree with me too? I think you don't even understand Copyright, as your obsession with the recipe example demonstrates.
Isn't that more or less what patent trolls already do?
Patent is not Copyright. That's something completely different.