Both Liberals and Conservatives, at least as incarnated in the
Republican and Democratic parties, joined together by acclaimation or
voice vote to pass the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, thereby, to my
mind, betraying Intellectual Freedom for the sake of Intellectual
Property.
To a Liberal, giving the police all the guns is a Good Idea, in
order that the government do the most good for the people, whether the
people want it or not.
To a Conservative, if it comes from the mouth of a corporate flack
the Truth is anointed. Copyrighted too.
Both seem to want, even need, centralised control for one purpose
or another, and fully intend to extend this control into the intellectual
sphere, for the sake of profit or the sake of ideological correctness, it
doesn't matter.
Defining patents, trademarks, and copyrights as Intellectual
Property is about as useful as shoveling snow with a pitchfork. Sometimes
it'll even work.
Free, even Open Source, software is about fitting together the
ideas you need to run your computer at its best, from whatever
contributions you choose. Copylefted ideas explicitly deny centralised
authority, and are irresponsibly distributed for free on the internet.
Despite this, we find ourselves trusting this code on our precious
computers.
We can always buy the Amercan product, produced the American way
by Americans. Well, mostly. Mr. Allchin said so.
--
Ed Craig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Taxi (I need an income) GNU/Linux (I can afford a Free OS)
Think this through with me, let me know your mind... Hunter/Garcia
