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Zimmermann Suggests Freeing PGP Source

Posted by timothy on from the like-the-wind dept.

broody writes "NewsForge has an interesting article detailing Phillip R Zimmermann's lament at selling PGP. Since he cannot afford to buy it back outright, he is pushing for Network Associates to 'open source' it. Well, the GUI and SDK anyway. I'll say this, he's an interesting little capitalist."

2 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. the GPL is a capitalist licence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    To me, capitalism boils down into a very simple principle, that is, do what is best for yourself, rather than trust a group of people to take care of you.
    In the former, the vast majority of people do relatively well for themselves. In the latter, we get the mediocrity or tall-poppy-syndrome of socialism, or worse, the hopeless misery of the extreme socialism practiced by the soviet block and others.

    In short capitalism does not restrict what you do, to preserve the interests of others; it is the role of the law to prevent others from stifling you, your advancement, OTOH, is your prerogative, not theirs.

    Socialism however, places its trust (trust! in a political system! the fatal mistake - basing a political system on the will of the people? what optimistic naivete) in others supporting a system which supports you.
    And? Useless, an abject and complete failure sans parallel nor exception.

    So in short socialism == imposing restrictions (work not for the good of only yourself! etc) which the govt has no hope of _making_sure_ that the people follow (and as we see, self-interest leads people to violate that basic rule of socialism, which is why socialism is such a failure)

    Proprietary licences == imposing restrictions (`do not copy') which the licencing authority has no hope of _making_sure_ the people follow (observe widespread software piracy, the BSA, for example)

    Capitalism == NOT imposing obnoxious restrictions

    OSS licences* == NOT imposing obnoxious restrictions

    So, the similarities shoule be evident. OSS licences == Capitalist.

    The main point behind "OSS == communist/socialist/unamerican" etc is that it is (apparently) un-capitalist to not sell software -- the economy will collapse because software vendors will go broke, so no taxes from companies(**). This is pathetically superficial. The point falls down when you realise that funds (of businesses, people) _will_ be spent. If people use non-proprietary software, the money they save will STILL go back into the economy (they'll buy beer, or whatever). The funds will get into the economy, just not through software.

    Simply, this point is a lame attempt by businesses to protect their revenue stream from a paradigm shift which will _remove_ said revenue stream. My advice to them? Get into brewing.

    OSS is very capitalist, once you get past the lame superficiality of "oss == non-capitalist because it raises no money" and delve into something less shallow.

    final note: non-OSS does not necessarily suck; e.g. os x rox your sox.

    * (well, the major ones -- i haven't delved into the less common ones, so i'll speak in terms of the major ones, that is, the GPL family, BSD and MIT licences, although the latter two are basically the same since the removal of the ad clause ~three years back)

    ** microsoft pays no corporate taxes: http://www.billparish.com/

  2. Re:I like PGP by lightcycler · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Ok: real question, somewhat offtopic:

    PGP-Disk alternative for linux, without having to recompile the kernel? Any ideas?