You make a fair observation, and I appreciate the level-headed read of the thread. However, I would argue that the argument hasn’t drifted; it has just moved from the philosophical foundation to its practical application. The legal framework of software licensing does not exist in a vacuum. EULAs, copyright law, and the strict legal distinction between software and physical media are the mechanisms society built to enforce the exact moral philosophy I outlined at the start.

When John Locke argued that a creator owns the fruits of their intellectual labor, he established the moral baseline. When a modern developer writes a EULA stating you are only buying a temporary license to execute their code, they are simply legally codifying that Lockean principle. The law treats software differently than a physical painting or a book precisely because the law recognizes the philosophical difference between a static object and a living digital ecosystem that requires ongoing human labor.

So, we haven’t abandoned the moral argument for a legal one. The current legal framework is just the practical enforcement of the creator’s moral authority. If we agree on the legal reality of how software is licensed, then we fundamentally agree on the ultimate conclusion: the consumer does not possess the moral right to demand permanent ownership of another person’s ongoing intellectual labor.