Followups to -legal. On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 01:07:02AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote: > I mentioned Thoreau in another thread, and the Bible in another; though > they are free in every sense, perhaps that would be a place where we > would need to be careful about modifications. I'm sure John Stuart Mill > would be horrified to find his works published with "errata" edited by > J. Edgar Hoover.
There are many things that people are "free" to do which would be horrifying to many. Publishing a book giving a scientific justification for the intellectual inferiority of people with asian and african backgrounds, or using gcc to write viruses and r00tkits, or using gnupg and libgmp to design a nuclear device for deployment in Jerusalem or Los Angeles. The trick is to make sure that people can write rebuttals, or stop physical actions that're wrong, not to stop people from exercising purely intellectual freedoms, like rewriting documentation or using programs. And we have the non-free section for people who don't agree with that philosophy in a completely wholehearted manner (like the Bitkeeper people, eg). Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``BAM! Science triumphs again!'' -- http://www.angryflower.com/vegeta.gif -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]