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Lawrence Lessig Elected to FSF Board of Directors
Free Software Foundation writes "Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig was elected to the Free Software Foundation's Board of Directors on March 28, 2004.
With Eben Moglen, the two most prominent academic legal minds on the subject of copyleft licensing now both serve as Directors of the Foundation.
Professor Lessig's involvement will undoubtedly give a major boost to the FSF's ongoing efforts to neutralize legal threats to software freedom.
The official announcement is here."
continue to do nothing except "advocate" free software
Evidently spoken by someone who uses free software like it was some kind of naturally happening thing...
If not for the FSF, and Eblen amd RMS and the other, you might be posting your drivel with some non-free software, because some corporation would have managed to squash free software in order to grab more marketshare.
I wish people like you were less ingrate and remembered whom you owe having the choice of running free software in the first place to.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Which begs the question, why would an obviously talented legal thinker be passed over time and again for judicial appointments?
The problem is that he's just too liberal for the current conservative regime. I am a big fan of Lessig as well even though I usually vote Republican. I've read two of Lessig's books and while I might disagree with him on other things, he's dead right when it comes to intellectual property and presents a very informed opinion that I think most sane non RIAA or MPAA tainted people could agree with weather they are from a blue or red state.
This can only serve to strengthen the GPL, particularly as version 3 nears completion, with stronger protections of freedom. All of our hard work is for nothing if Microsoft can steal our code with impugnity.
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Find out more about the impending downfall o
He could actually enact through judicial activism...
Stop right there. That's not right. Judicial activism should not exist in any direction, even on viewpoints we agree on. Judicial activism is where a judge ignores the law and just rules based on how they wish the law was. That's wrong.
If you want him writing laws... send him to Congress.
Lessig is definitely not in the "all software should be Free" camp. He tends more to suggest that we should continue to feed the public domain, which means shorter copyrights, not the elimination of them.
So really, he's much more moderate than RMS, so having him on the board should likely make the FSF a little more Congress-friendly.
...will be in the courts. We see it with Linux and SCO, and that won't be the last major court battle over free software. Free software (and open source, for those that worry about that distinction) has proven that it's up to snuff technically. And intelligent people can disagree over ease-of-use compared to commercial products.
But the one area where proprietary software really has had free software outclassed is in legal muscle. Of course, some companies (Novell, IBM, HP for a few) have supported free software because they stand to benefit from it. But free software needs as many sharp legal experts as it can get--that will support free software for the sake of free software. It's nice to see that this is happening.
Judicial activism has nothing to do with unconstitutional laws. It has to do with a judge considering a law "wrong" or "harsh" even though it _IS_ Constitutional.
Calling a law unconstitutional is simply ruling a law invalid because the supreme law of the USA is the Constitution as ammended and it says something contradictory to that law.
Judicial activism is something beyond that, when a judge makes a twisted ruling that's likely to be appealed because it's not grounded in any law at all... simply "legislating from the bench". That's really exposing a weakness in our government, that a judge has to really-really-really screw up to lose their job. Bad judges are hard to get rid of, but the solution isn't to want bad judges who you agree with.
yeh, let's give up.
If you have some sage advice for FSF, I suggest you write it on the back of a cheque and send it to them. (whether you do this or not - and whether you give up or not, they'll keep fighting for your freedom.)
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Bzzzzt. Wrong. Why don't you read one of his books before you start accusing him of being the exact opposite of what he is.
An extremist is someone who believes themselves to be absolutely unquestionably right, without considering the opinion of the opposition. Sounds like yourself. Just because Lessig is willing to look at both sides of the issue, which you obviously aren't capable of, doesn't mean he's a sellout to either side. He's simply willing to actualy expend some thought about the problem, instead of demanding one way or the other all the time.
I'm sorry you don't agree with lessig. I'm also sorry can't understand the concept of comprimise. I'm also sorry you can't be bothered to contemplate the other side of your argument. You're obviously not a musician, writer, or artist. Just because you want to take their works for free doesn't mean it's right.
I don't think of Lessig as an absolutist like Stallman, he's an intellectual and academic, and academics generally spend too much time thinking and analyzing to have such a black-and-white view of the world. He's taken a stand to protect the very existence of concepts like the public domain. Yes, Creative Commons offers more flexibility in licensing format than the FSF offerings, but that's done in the domain that Lessig knows. I'd love to see the FSF become as warm and fuzzy and accepting as Creative Commons is, and I have no reason to believe that Lessig won't help with that process.
> "This idea that everybody has to release his source under GPL or something complaint is getting to my nerves."
free vs. unfree is a line in the sand, we could spend time debating it, or we could just use the GPL. The G is for General - there was an EmacsPL, a GCC-PL, etc. But RMS realised that it would be nice for other people to be able to share code between projects, so he made a General license for all software. If you use it, your software can be integrated with other peoples software easier - allowing more programming and less lawyering.
Don't worry, using a General license doesn't prevent you from being a unique little snowflake.
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Over the years Lessig has always been the goto guy for comments putting the FSF actions and announcements in a digestible context. Now that he is officially part of the organization he won't be able to provide an objective opinion. Is that a gain or a loss?
Okay, this is probably way OT, but...
Well, he claims to be liberal in Free Culture.
Hm, where does he claim that? I can't find anything that says he's a liberal, but I may be missing it.
If I was an aspiring legal type, I'd probably clerk for just about any appellate level judge that would take me. The experience would be too good to pass up.
I don't know many former clerks that weren't at least sympathetic to the views of their judges. A reason may be that judges don't often pick clerks that appear to have beliefs contrary to their own. Also, though clerkships are competitive and prospective clerks usually apply to many, many clerkships, I don't think that many people would apply to be clerks with Posner or Scalia if they weren't already sympathetic to their views: Posner and Scalia are polarizing jurists that are especially capable of provoking extreme reactions from liberals. I just don't know many liberal legal-types that would want to be their clerks, period. Remember that clerks have to work closely with their judges: clerks do much of the research, help hash out the arguments and reasoning and edit (or even draft, though probably not for Scalia or Posner, who probably do their own first drafts) opinions. The clincher (or deal breaker, as the case may be) is that these opinions effect real results and affect real people. They are not academic exercises. That's enough for a liberal not to clerk for those two.
You realize, of course, that the elimination of copyright would make the GPL invalid as well don't you. That's right, the GPL is only valid because of the protections offered under copyright law, otherwise anyone could just disregaurd the General Public License.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Well, we are discussing Lessig so I don't think this is offtopic. But to each his own.
You are right, there is no sentence in the book that says, "I am a liberal" but it is implied a few times. However, I remember it being insinuated several times in the book, but in the preface (page xiv) he says: If we understood his change, I believe we would resist it. Not "we" on the Left or "you" on the Right, but we who have no stake ... This leads me to believe he identifies with the Left or with liberals.
I just don't know many liberal legal-types that would want to be their clerks, period.
Well I can't speak for Lessig, but I would bet that being a clerk for a Justice is more of who you know than who you agree with. I'm a security consultant and more than once had to implement what I consider draconian intrusion on my client's employee's privacy. It pays the bills and is good experience on the resume. Does that make me a mercenary? Maybe, but isn't it really the jobs of consultants (and perhaps lawyers) to do the will of those who pay them?
(You can Google Eldred v. Ashcroft for html, but the pdfs are much easier to read.)