From: Michal Suchanek <hramrach@...>
Date: 2010-03-14T01:51:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Why no TextMate for Linux?

On 13 March 2010 15:55, Diego Virasoro <diego.virasoro@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Non-comparable.  No fundamental civil rights are infringed when I'm told
>> > I can't burn *someone else's* American flag.  My right to write software
>> > is not infringed by my lack of a right to modify someone else's without
>> > permission.
>>
>> I suppose that's the difference between buying and renting software.
>>
> eh??? How's Textmate a rented software? I can use it forever: nobody
> is stopping me. And I am not paying per month. What's your definition
> of renting?

Yes, it is rented, pretty much all software is. By law you own only
software you have written yourself or some software which has somebody
written from scratch for you and transferred the copyright ownership
to you. For most other software you only obtain a license to use it
and the license terms typically provide the licensor the option to
discontinue the license so "rented" what describes the software quite
well.

Opensource and free software for different definitions of free is also
rented, you can use it as long as you fulfill the license
requirements.

Only public domain software is not owned by anybody so you can use it
without renting it.

Thanks

Michal