Interview with Don Marti

mpawlo writes "I just picked Don Marti's brain in a short interview published by Greplaw. Don Marti is the editor of LinuxJournal and the mastermind behind the Burnallgifs campaign. He has strong views on free software, software patentability and the freedom of the Internet. Marti should personally be featured in any encyclopedia under 'geektivism' and the brief interview may be of interest to Slashdotters not yet familiar with Mr Marti."

Comments

A few comments

[Elbereth]

1) As a few anonymous cowards have asked, "Who is Don Marti, and why should I care about his opinions?" I don't really see why this is headline news. Most of probably don't care about him, and his opinions are not very interesting or revolutionary. In short, he's just a regular guy who got interviewed. If I were a little more cynical, I might even suggest that this was a cheap ploy to get a few thousands hits on someone's banner ads.

2) Quoting from the article:

Software is a good thing because in software, a small investment can create and manage great complexity. When you impose the same transaction costs on software as on hardware, much useful software that could otherwise have been created does not exist. We are seeing this today in the field of video compression. The MPEG patent licensing mess is excluding everyone except for large, well-funded corporations from creating innovative new video-related software.

I don't follow this. What MPEG patent licensing mess? There is none. If you want to use an algorithm developed by someone else, at great expense, you follow their rules. If you want to use their algorithm for free... then, I'm sorry, you'll just have to come up with your own algorithm. And when you're done, don't forget to give it away for free.

3) Uhhh... this guy has what qualifications to be talking about law and interpreting the Constitution? I didn't see anything in his bio about being a lawyer.