I am a general IP abolitionist, but the real solution to the problem of source code lost forever is in the domain of right to repair. Since the advent of software the right to repair, which used to be respected for almost anything you could buy, has been completely abandoned. Requiring access to the sources to modify code you buy (or in a post-IP world, receive in binary form) would go a long way to stopping the software culture death of source code never being released and rotting on hard drives until its irretrievable.
The problem is the current dominant culture is either completely apathetic or actually hostile to right to repair for software. Its why I say "I hope its only 20XX" because I don't see the path to fixing that mindset.
That being said, it is important to distinguish that while I spoke about how future historians will see both draconian IP and the lack of right to repair as barbaric and antiquated, they are distinct but related concepts.
RMS has historically viewed copyright as a bad thing[1], all the way from how it has developed historically to how it is applied uniformly to different kinds of works (practical works like software being copyrighted is of particular concern).
Now, you might say that "the GPL uses copyright, which clearly means that RMS and the FSF are pro-copyright". They're not. Copyleft is a hack of the copyright system[2], specifically designed such that as copyright becomes stronger so does the amount of freedom provided by copyleft. This is explicitly the purpose. If it were not legal to stop users from modifying software, then the GPL would not need to exist (nor could it).
RMS has stated[3] that his views on an ideal copyright system is:
1. Authors retain copyright, not publishers. This matches the original copyright law that was created in England under Queen Mary in The Statute of Anne (1710)[4].
2. The scope of works covered would be reduced. Most importantly, practical works would not be covered under copyright.
3. The length of time that copyright applies to a work would be massively reduced. Works are being created today that children born today will never see in the public domain. The solution is to reduce the length of time that copyright applies to 10 years (or possibly 5, which some authors appear to prefer).
4. The breadth of restrictions would be reduced. Most notably, distribution of a work would no longer require permission from the owner. The argument for this change requires watching his entire lecture, but it comes from a historical argument on how copyright has developed and how modern copyright has broken the trend in that it attacking consumers of a work rather than publishers (which was the original purpose, if you look at the development of copyright law alongside the development of copying technologies like the printing press). Not to mention that lending a book to a friend or selling it are both perfectly acceptable things to do.
GNU software's clearly using copyright as a hack ("copyleft") to achieve its actual goal of a non-copyright world. So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist.
>> So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist.
Not so sure. That would effectively make all open source code fall under the equivalent of a BSD or MIT license, which the GPL clearly is not. GPL want's the essential freedoms to apply to all derivative works as well as the original. Neither BSD, MIT, or complete lack of copyright can make that happen.
FSM is about making all software free, not all software GPL'd. If copyright laws are dissolved and prop. software got outlawed, there would be no need for GPL. GPL is a hack to circumvent future prop. software using your code. In other words, if no one can hide their source code, there wouldn't be a difference between MIT and GPL.
Abolition of copyright and banning proprietary software seem like two very different things. The comment I replied to just mentioned elimination of copyright. I agree that combined with a ban on proprietary software none of the licenses would really matter - depending on the wording of the laws of course.
While having the source is an important part of something being free software, the far more insidious problems with proprietary software are the other freedoms they strip away from you -- the freedoms to use and distribute the software.
Not to mention that in the 60s, source code was always provided because nobody thought it was valuable (and copyright was not applied to said source code). The software was the source code. I can imagine that if we actually went through a cultural shift of abandoning the completely ludicrous views of modern copyright, that companies would start providing source code again (we're seeing that happen today, in small steps, with companies making more and more free software projects -- even without the copyright reform). There would be no incentive to keep the source unavailable, because they'd have no monopoly on it.
