Comment Let Anarchy Ring (Score 1) 521
We Don't Want Your Software Industry, We Just Want the World
(Let Anarchy Ring)
Hooray for S & K! As usual, the standard /.'ers response is to ardently
defend the "right" to copyright. Anybody have the guts around here to
seriously question the "right" to private property in the first place?
At base that is what S & K do here. Once land was viewed as something
many people could do many things with, and which animals had a right to
inhabit; today it is generally viewed as something the owner can do what
they please with, and nobody else even has a right to walk through. As a
result we are all more impoverished. Now not only our land, our natural
resources, our air, mountains, oceans, rivers. etc. are owned and
controlled by a small elite, but creative ideas.
The basic model on which GPL is based is academia; people are entirely
free to quote, cite, reference and use each others' writing and ideas.
I'm in atomic physics and all of the work I've done and my colleagues have
done is entirely free and open; yet somehow, we keep working, moving
forward and being productive. As a community we learn, develop and share
our ideas, and we prosper incredibly from this exchange. And we are
decades ahead of industry in every technological frontier. On top of
that, we do it all on pennies compared to what industry routinely spends
to do vastly simpler stuff. Most of our money actually comes out of odd
corners of education funding.
One can easily make the claim that industry would lose its raison d'etre
if patents disappeared, but I'm sorry, this is bullshit. If a company is
big enough, they make whatever they want regardless of who owns the patent
and bulldoze whoever tries to sue them. /.'ers who follow the MS gossip
know what I am talking about. The only real advantage is gained through
industrial secrets, which don't usually last very long, and have nothing
to do with patent law. Patent law does not defend the weakling inventor
in his garage from the big company. It is a slegehammer that big
companies use to demolish their competition. Patents have nothing to do
with freedom, no more than copyrights or landownership.
Instead of meekly defending the coroporations that are ruining our music
with copyright law, and plastering all the rest of our culture with
advertisements, let's stand up and take credit for the incredible success
that free software has been, and travel on to spread freedom to other
parts of our society. Why not bring the kind of freedom OS programmers
enjoy to medicine, agriculture, publishing, music, land use? The robbery
of our minds, culture and resources has enslaved us and is enslaving more
of the world, more deeply, every year. In the words of someone, we don't
want your software industry, we just want the world.
Let's be honest, too, about what we're asking; Stallman took a few months
off, lived off his savings and started a non-profit organization, he
wasn't Jesus on the Cross or anything. We're not all going to starve if
we throw our lot in with free, open projects. Compared to most of the
world, Linux programmers who live in their parents' basements and collect
Star Trek DVD's have it easy.
(Let Anarchy Ring)
Hooray for S & K! As usual, the standard
defend the "right" to copyright. Anybody have the guts around here to
seriously question the "right" to private property in the first place?
At base that is what S & K do here. Once land was viewed as something
many people could do many things with, and which animals had a right to
inhabit; today it is generally viewed as something the owner can do what
they please with, and nobody else even has a right to walk through. As a
result we are all more impoverished. Now not only our land, our natural
resources, our air, mountains, oceans, rivers. etc. are owned and
controlled by a small elite, but creative ideas.
The basic model on which GPL is based is academia; people are entirely
free to quote, cite, reference and use each others' writing and ideas.
I'm in atomic physics and all of the work I've done and my colleagues have
done is entirely free and open; yet somehow, we keep working, moving
forward and being productive. As a community we learn, develop and share
our ideas, and we prosper incredibly from this exchange. And we are
decades ahead of industry in every technological frontier. On top of
that, we do it all on pennies compared to what industry routinely spends
to do vastly simpler stuff. Most of our money actually comes out of odd
corners of education funding.
One can easily make the claim that industry would lose its raison d'etre
if patents disappeared, but I'm sorry, this is bullshit. If a company is
big enough, they make whatever they want regardless of who owns the patent
and bulldoze whoever tries to sue them.
know what I am talking about. The only real advantage is gained through
industrial secrets, which don't usually last very long, and have nothing
to do with patent law. Patent law does not defend the weakling inventor
in his garage from the big company. It is a slegehammer that big
companies use to demolish their competition. Patents have nothing to do
with freedom, no more than copyrights or landownership.
Instead of meekly defending the coroporations that are ruining our music
with copyright law, and plastering all the rest of our culture with
advertisements, let's stand up and take credit for the incredible success
that free software has been, and travel on to spread freedom to other
parts of our society. Why not bring the kind of freedom OS programmers
enjoy to medicine, agriculture, publishing, music, land use? The robbery
of our minds, culture and resources has enslaved us and is enslaving more
of the world, more deeply, every year. In the words of someone, we don't
want your software industry, we just want the world.
Let's be honest, too, about what we're asking; Stallman took a few months
off, lived off his savings and started a non-profit organization, he
wasn't Jesus on the Cross or anything. We're not all going to starve if
we throw our lot in with free, open projects. Compared to most of the
world, Linux programmers who live in their parents' basements and collect
Star Trek DVD's have it easy.
