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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: russell_-at-_flora.ottawa.on.ca
Date: 3 Feb 1999 14:18:18 -0500
References: <199902031634.LAA13272@striker.ottawa.on.ca>
On Wed, 3 Feb 1999, Alan DeKok wrote: > I *strongly* disagree that 'every idea is obvious under the right > circumstances'. I believe that history shows otherwise. What Copyright/patents try to suggest is the reverse: That all ideas, like 'physical matter', is unique and can only exist in one place at one time. This is obviously false: Two people can come up with the same idea without any knowledge of the other person. Whether or not ideas are 'obvious' or not is not an issue, it's whether or not they are unique. Clearly ideas are not, while physical objects are. Analogies cannot be made to try to fit the two to be the same (As both Alan and Paul have tried to do). Paul tried to compare the sharing of ideas to the sharing of ones physical home. Privacy issues aside, I am not 'hurt' by someone using an idea of mine, but I can be hurt by someone (accidentally or otherwise) breaking/taking irreplaceable items in my home. A contract I have with a lawyer or doctor ensuring my privacy doesn't relate to form (IE: "Source code" or "Binary") and doesn't say anything about a "price" that can be paid to be told that secret. A secret is a secret. It goes all back to money again: There are those who believe that money can replace everything, and there are those who recognize that there are many things money cannot replace. There are those who believe in Copyright as a way to fund software projects is an appropriate exchange for the restriction to basic freedoms copyright encourages, such as the numerous invasions of privacy being proposed in order to track "Software pirates". I am not one of those people. I believe that projects that cannot be funded using other non-IP methods should be projects that do not get done. The same happens now of other projects where the 'predominant funding model' doesn't fit and the project is scrapped. The Free Software movement is all about changing the 'predominant funding model' for the information economy, and changing what projects get financial support and what projects are left dead in the water. Back to my house: All the above being said, I do live in a Co-operatively managed building and do put money towards shared spaces that I need to trust my neighbors not to destroy. I consider this to be a totally separate conversation as it involves the management of physical spaces/resources, totally conceptually different than the management of virtual/ideas spaces/resources. > My partial solution: peer review of patents, not review by > incompetent patent examiners. This method has worked for scientific > papers and theories for hundreds of years. And the lack of patents worked for thousands of years before that. Intellectual Property is a very new idea, and one I personally believe (And yes, hope) will not pass the test of time. > > Once you read an idea, it's in your head and you *will* use it > > elsewhere - you can't help doing so. Freedom of thought and freedom > > of expression (should) guarantee that you *may* use it. Copyright > > and patent are therefore infringements of basic human rights. > > Wow, that's a pretty sweeping statement. I'd like to believe that > history shows otherwise (e.g. the REASONS for inventing the concepts > of copyright and patents) You are free to believe that I guess, and your "history shows otherwise" is an equally sweaping (and unprovable) statement. Just understand that there are going to be others that do not share your view. I for one agree with the statement Krishna made that Copyright and Patents are infringements of basic human rights. > My problem is that every time I say "the GPL is not perfect", I get > a bleating of: Actually what you said was "Is this guy on crack?" but we don't have to go there again. While you were refering to RMS, you were obviously going to insult others who have similar or the same views. > The GPL is Good! > The GPL is Great! > If we all used it > Life would be neat! You get this as you write about the GPL from a non- Free Software viewpoint, trying to refer to yourself as a Free Software person. You believe that information should be able to be owned/restricted for profit, and thus your postings are going to seem inconsistent to a Free Software thinking person. And yes, I realize that my postings are going to seem inconsistent from the viewpoint of a non-Free Software thinking person. This is why I believe this is a conversation that will never end or be resolved. I have always noted that not much in the arguments have changed in the last 10 years since MCR introduced me to the GPL and to gnu.misc.discuss. I only participate in them to hopefully introduce the arguments to new people who haven't been debating this same topic for over 10 years ;-) > This doesn't help me. The GPL is NOT perfect, and does NOT apply to > ALL situations. There are realistically only TWO long-term situations: You either believe ideas can/should be able to be owned, or you don't. All the different licenses are tools to try to 'migrate' people from these opposing viewpoints to each others camps, or to appeal to people who haven't quite made up their mind yet. These licenses should be understood in that context. You are not alone sitting on that fence and not not agreeing with what RMS and others are saying about Intellectual Property. There are many prominent 'Open Source' people such as Eric S. Raymond who isn't quite sure about the GPL and the concepts it suggests about information ownership. > For this reason, I'd like to think of myself as a > 'free software advocate', and not a 'GPL bigot'. You are NOT a Free Software advocate, you are an Open-Source advocate. If you believe that information can be owned, then you aren't really a Free Software advocate. > This is nice. It would be nice if everyone had these freedoms. But > the comments I was complaining about made it clear that he did NOT > want these freedoms to be given to people who disagreed with him. > That was what I objected to, not the GPL. I assume you also object to jails - to removing someone's freedom to commit crimes, etc. The LGPL and other 'Open Source' style licenses are tools to try to convert people who are seen by Free Software thinkers to be 'freeloaders' (Or criminals, depending on how angry the person is at the time). I personally see Open Source/LGPL is a sort of "Halfway house for information thieves". I'm not sure if RMS's timing was correct, but his ideas are consistent as always. He views people who use GPL for non-GPL projects to be Freeloaders, and as a true right-winger he wants to actively encourage these people to 'Get off the Dole!'. All the Socialist views of the Open-Source people and the "politically correct" attempts to slowly and less painfully move people off of Copyright (off of 'getting something for nothing') gets a little frustrating at times. Note: Don't confuse the above to mean that I disagree with Social Welfare. I believe that inequalities in the monetary system have left us with no choice but to try to level the playing field. I don't, however, believe that Welfare should be used outside a social contest and should not apply to the most priveledged sectors of our society (EG: The Intellectual Property industries, housing most of the richest people on the planet) as that accomplishes the exact opposite. BTW: Your earlier use of "Corel and Wine" as an example of a proprietary-thinking company helping Free Software ended up proving my point more than it did yours. Wine is another one of those "Halfway house" tools that only exists to run non-Free software on a Free platform. Free Software doesn't need such "binary-level" emulators. --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://russell.flora.org/work/> Thoughts about India, Business including Netshooter project Happy Republic Day, India/Linux! http://russell.flora.org/india/
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