>The solution is that intellectual property and government granted monopolies are bad and should not be the law. They exist on shaky ground in that we assume that they produce more good than harm -- not a well grounded assumption imho.
Except those laws are what allows the entire software industry(both closed source and FOSS). Without the protections of IP, none of the copyleft licenses(either Apache or GPL) have any power. Neither does any closed source license.
So no, intellectual property by itself isn't bad. It's absolutely required.
EDIT: Not sure why this is downvoted. The GPL itself relies on copyright powers to have any force. Remove copyright, the GPL loses all it's power. Any software license becomes useless, too.
Yeah. There's a big difference between patents and copyrights. It's clear to me copyright is necessary for creative works - you couldn't make a living as a writer, musician, or software company if other people could just copy your finished work.
But patents are a different beast. From what I can tell they've become an impediment to progress instead of an aid.
Except those laws are what allows the entire software industry(both closed source and FOSS). Without the protections of IP, none of the copyleft licenses(either Apache or GPL) have any power. Neither does any closed source license.
So no, intellectual property by itself isn't bad. It's absolutely required.
EDIT: Not sure why this is downvoted. The GPL itself relies on copyright powers to have any force. Remove copyright, the GPL loses all it's power. Any software license becomes useless, too.