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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: Russell McOrmond <russell_-at-_flora.ca>
To: denders_-at-_baghdadbulletin.com
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 20:48:32 -0400 (EDT)
In reply to: http://www.baghdadbulletin.com/pageArticle.php?article_id=45&cat_id=1 Author: Hussain Kubba (Bulletin Economics Editor) "It has matured into a culture that considers all software a free public good available to all." Rather than describing the internationally illegal act of copying software without the permission of the creators, it might also describe the Free/Libre and Open Source Software FLOSS http://www.flora.ca/floss.shtml movement which creates, distributes and licenses software to be free of royalties and protect specific freedoms of the users of that software. As a software creator I do not violate the copyright of others software, and do not use non-free/libre software such as that created and distributed by Microsoft. That being said, I do strongly believe that software *should* be considered a public good available to all. I think the problem here is not copyright laws, but lack of knowledge of alternatives in the software market. FLOSS is what has always driven the Internet, and is royalty-free such that the problems discussed in the article do not exist. This is both legal and free, and avoids yet another way that foreign interests will impose their will on Iraq. While I believe that Iraq is getting a raw deal with extremists from the Recording Industry Association of America possibly authoring new copyright laws for Iraq <http://www.digital-copyright.ca/discuss/1855>, and other US extremists trying to impose software patents worldwide <http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=436>, there isn't actually a good reason to illegally copy Microsoft, Oracle and other products when Free/Libre and legal FLOSS alternatives exist. As to how much illegal copying costs "the industry" (or rather, that portion that is still dependent on legacy royalty based business models), the fact is that they simply don't know and are using bogus numbers: http://weblog.flora.org/search.php3?query=CAAST I hope this helps. If you wish to collaborate to author an article for your bulletin, please let me know. Note: To read a good study on Integrating Intellectual Property and development policy, see: http://www.iprcommission.org/ --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than politicians should be bought. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
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