POLITECH DIGEST Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) Digest subscription information is at the end. _______________________________________________________________
Today's Topics: 1. Peter Junger, encryption law warrior, R.I.P. [fs] (Declan McCullagh) -------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:40:18 -0800 From: Declan McCullagh <[email protected]> Subject: [Politech] Peter Junger, encryption law warrior, R.I.P. [fs] To: Politech <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed I just learned from Case Western's law school that Peter Junger died at 73 last week. The Plain Dealer's obituary is here: http://cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1164360994108030.xml&coll=2 I first encountered Peter during his courageous First Amendment lawsuit against the federal government over the constitutionality of anti-encryption regulations. When I taught a class at Case Western a few years ago, Peter was kind enough to be a guest lecturer. When CyberPatrol made legal threats over software that decrypted the "secret" blacklist, Peter said on Politech that the software was "seriously useful" and "educational" and that the DMCA was a threat: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01015.html In addition to being a law professor (and, more recently, a professor of law emeritus), Peter was an active blogger, Buddhist, and system administrator. I recall Peter telling me he gave up his office (which he would be otherwise be entitled to) at the law school in exchange for being able to colocate his samsara.law.cwru.edu Red Hat Linux server at the law school instead. Up until his death Peter was working on an article with the typically blunt title of "You Can't Patent Software; Patenting Software is Wrong." A draft is here: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/patart/index.html And an excerpt: "As I argue in this article at what most of you will consider excessive length, the Supreme Court was right in holding that computer programs are no more patentable than are mathematical inventions like the calculus or logical truths like De Morgan's law that ``NOT (A AND B)'' equals ``NOT A OR NOT B''. Computer programs are texts, not machines as some lawyers have confused themselves into believing, and thus they may be copyrighted and protected by the First Amendment, but they are not patentable as machines. Computer programs are indeed processes, but they are not patentable processes because what they process is information and what they produce is information, not some modification of material goods or articles of commerce. The simple fact is---though the reasons for it may be hard for most lawyers to grasp---that, as the title of this article puts it: ``You can't patent software: patenting software is wrong.''" I'm told the Cleveland Buddhist Temple is holding a memorial service for Peter on Saturday and that the law school is planning one soon. -Declan ------------------------------ Send Politech mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://politechbot.com/mailman/listinfo/politech or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Politech digest..." _______________________________________________________________ Politech is the oldest and most popular mailing list devoted to politics and technology. It is moderated by Declan McCullagh, and list archives and information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe can be found at: http://www.politechbot.com/ Politech is available in both a daily digest and in the traditional individual-message format. You may redistribute this digest freely if you include this notice. _______________________________________________________________ End of Politech Digest, Vol 39, Issue 1 ***************************************
