Well, I got pissed... :) I was looking forward to this new magazine, and
I was sorely disappointed.
For those who want to read the editorials/columns, in question, I'll have
it at the next meeting...
Seth
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 18:49:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Seth Cohn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Open Magazine just doesn't get it... how sad...
I received issue 1.2 of Open magazine, the new Andover.net print magazine,
in the mail today. And from the editorial on page 3, to the back pages'
publisher's column, I have to wonder what the heck happened, and when did
'Open Source' stop being 'free as in freedom' and only 'open as in
viewable'?
On page 3, Jack Fegreus, editorial director of Open, slurs anyone who
thinks that currency should have something real behind it, when he insults
the 'gold loonies'. Keeping in mind that Alan Greenspan himself once was
a gold advocate and Ayn Rand-ist, the ridiculous inflation of IT companies
with massive IPOs is just as senseless as dollars without something solid
behind them. Linux stocks starting plummenting, not because of anything
the companies did, but because the stock value was far more than the
companies were really worth. A 'gold standard' for information would mean
that the value of a company was based on something concrete, support or
eyeballs or sales, for instance, not just the latest hype. Bad economic
theory is not why I subscribed to a 'Open Source' magazine. Lots of the
original 'free software' believers are also libertarian, at least by
ideals, Jack.
On page 72, Michael Lamattina, publisher of Open, wonders if millions of
Napster users 'have a clue', and shames Gnutella for 'releasing the source
code'. Regardless of your position on the Napster debate, the 'freedom'
position is clear: technology to 'lock and charge' is bad. Yet here is
the publisher of a supposedly 'Open Source focused' magazine trying to
proclaim that it's a lost battle, it's 'theft' and that Gnutella's open
source is 'a disgusting technological equivalent of wartime's human
shield'.
Michael, you don't get it: Freedom is freedom. If you try to lock up
music, or code, or movies, or anything else, at some point, you remove my
right to do with the data as I wish. Freedom is about just that: to do as
I wish with what I receive. IP laws are the opposite: to prevent you from
doing with as you wish. This technological jump is as radical as the
Gutenberg press was, and it's time for people to wait up and smell the
roses. This battle won't be fought in the courts, because the courts are
a generation behind. Try to ban something on the net and watch the 'whack
a mole' game start up. Mirrors pop up, new ways to spread code appear,
and nothing truly dies on the net, it's only a tape backup away. The
battle was lost with the first 'copy a: b:', and no court in the land will
ever close the door again.
'Free as in beer' isn't enough. Free as in 'watch/listen only the way we
say you can' isn't free, MPAA - RIAA - Real - WhoeverElse. The hacks will
continue, and they will get harder and harder to stop. Decentralization
is the way it's going to spread, and when the laws required to stop it
grow ever more arcane and obtuse and annoying and invasive, the general
public/mass consciousness will finally stop listening to the little man
behind the curtain who looks like a cross between Jack Valenti and Bill
Gates, and stop obeying laws that make little sense in the new Digital
Age.
sincerely,
Seth Cohn
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
