On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Ron Harwood wrote:

> Limewire was suppose to present - they were sending a techie/coder - but
> they're getting cold feet. I think because they're afraid that the
> techie will get backed into a corner regarding ethics/legal, and make
> them look bad.

  This is very interesting.  The Internet was designed to be P2P.  The
first application for the IP networks was a P2P file sharing tool called
'FTP'.  FTP pre-dates SMTP, HTTP and every other protocol that now exists
on the Internet.


  How can P2P be, at such a late date, be reconsidered to be unethical or
illegal?  P2P is just a class of communications tools, and are not 
themselves illegal or unethical  -- only specific subsets of what can be 
communicated with these tools can be questioned.

  I can't go - due to the DMCA and related laws, I do not travel to or 
otherwise set foot on US soil.  I'm also a "policy wonk" and not a 
developer at this point (writing software isn't quite like riding a bike - 
it does slowly fade away), which isn't likely what they are looking for.

> Thanks, 
> 
> Ron 
---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions
 Submission to Innovation Strategy         | No2Violence in Politics
 http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml | http://www.no-dot.ca/

Reply via email to