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Freedom or Power Redux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the round-and-round-we-go dept.

Warhammer writes: "In his web log today Tim O'Reilly responded to Stallman and Kuhn's essay, Freedom or Power (previous Slashdot article). I think he has some great points about not getting caught up in who has more of a right to freedom. Instead he says we should concentrate on a compromise that benefits everyone, developer and user alike."

Ed. note - a brief response to Tim. A) my name isn't Timothy. (I know, I know, we all look alike. :) And B) I was trying to say pretty much what O'Reilly is saying - that all licensing, including the GPL, is an expression of power over what other people can do with the software. Hence the term "all licensing". If there were no copyright whatsoever on computer code, no intellectual property considerations at all, perhaps we could approach the state of true freedom. In the meantime, the GPL is a good way to place code firmly into a state where it is mostly free - you are free to do anything with GPL code except take it out of its free state. As far as restrictions go, this one is infinitely more palatable than most of the powers that software licensing seeks to exercise over software users.

As a more general point, I take issue with O'Reilly's description of copyright law as a compromise between creators and users. There's absolutely no evidence that the rights of users are considered when copyright laws are made. All copyright law changes made in my lifetime, nearly all copyright law changes ever, have been expansions of copyright law - if it's a compromise, it's an extraordinarily one-sided one. (I suppose you could a describe a mugging as a compromise between the mugger and the little old lady over rights to her purse.) Copyright law is more accurately described as a compromise between copyright holders and copyright holders. Other descriptions are both inaccurate and do a disservice to efforts to reform the laws.

11 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ownage

  2. Re:burst toast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What's burst toast?

  3. Re:burst toast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    i dunno.
    toast that burst?
    when i tried to type the same comment with 'first post' in it, i kept getting rejected.

  4. First Toast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yay!

    1. Re:First Toast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      you failed. lewser.

  5. pants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    pants

  6. Re:Stephen King, author, dead at 55 by the_rev_matt · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    >I just heard some sad news on talk radio -

    Probably should've just stopped there. If you hear anything on talk radio and don't verify it with a real news source then you're an idiot. It's the equivelant of taking everything you see on Friends as absolute truth.

    --
    this is getting old and so are you

    blog

  7. Re:michael is a wanker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oh, really??? This is the very interesting I shall put him into the international wanker watchlist. Thank you, SplashBlob Speical Elite Troll

  8. Re:C: A Dead Language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Not a bad little troll, actually. Worth a chuckle.

  9. What the hell?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Why is Tom Sizemore's character always killed off in every movie he's in?!

  10. Oh, the irony by s20451 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I can't help but to point out the thick irony of RMS, on the one hand, arguing that open source software is all about freedom over power, and on the other hand, running for the GNOME board of directors to restrict the freedom of users to use GNOME with closed-source software, thereby maintaining power over what he sees as "his" project.

    --
    Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.