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So, as for the so-called moral/ethical issue around the DIKU license, some claim that following it (which tends to mean following their personal interpretation of it rather than someone else's) is a moral imperative.
I'd suggest that it's pretty hard to claim some sort of universal moral or ethical obligation to follow IP laws generally. Now, I personally am as stringent as anyone you've ever met when it comes to IP law. I don't illegally download music, I don't pirate software, etc. Not doing those things is part of my moral system.
But who am I to tell some Chinese peasant that it is immoral for him to xerox a book and sell it? Intellectual property as currently instantiated in the West is a very modern, Western-centric notion, and I guess I fail to see why the West's take on IP is somehow morally superior to much of the East, where IP has no moral, ethical, or practical legal force. There's an extreme difference there, but the same logic is applicable to this discussion. Who are you to tell someone that your view of the morality regarding something as specific as 'derivative works' is the right one? The whole idea of derivative works really has no bearing or history outside of legal systems to begin with. Certainly, no religion or major school of ethical thought has, as a tenet, anything regarding use of derivative works that I'm aware of.
And you know, those who fall back to the ethical or moral argument when they feel that the legal argument may be shaky are engaging in a bit of fuzzy thinking, I feel. What's the basis for an ethical or moral judgement on intellectual property if not the law? I'm not really aware of any major school of ethical thought which recognizes the lack of intellectual property protection as being somehow 'wrong' or unethical. IP law exists for a practical purpose, not a moral or ethical one.
--matt
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