FSF, Political Activism or Crossing the Line?

orbitor writes to tell us InfoWorld's Neil McAllister is calling into question some of the recent decisions by the Free Software Foundation. From the article: "All the more reason to be disappointed by the FSF's recent, regrettable spiral into misplaced neo-political activism, far removed from its own stated first principles. In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma."

Comments

DRM is meaningless

[zyche]

Perhaps I'm uninformed, but how can opposing DRM, a technique which clearly never will work in the long run and in the end be paid for by consumers, be a bad thing?

People are watching freakin' cammed versions of movies for Petes sake... When will the DRM firms get it?! I should go patent sound waves and photons and claim that these are a "media distribution channel for IP".

Sex IS Free (as in Freedom of Speech)

[hummassa]

Slashdot-audience-focus-group jokes apart:

When I was single, everything I did with a sexual partner -- and everything she did with me -- could be repeated (or retried) with the next, without fear of being sued for the "Intellectual Property" of an interesting, insightful or even astounding sexual discovery.

At least that's how I learned the "Candelabro Italiano" :-)

Re:Sex IS Free (as in Freedom of Speech)

[Ohreally_factor]

When I was single, everything I did with a sexual partner -- and everything she did with me -- could be repeated (or retried) with the next, without fear of being sued for the "Intellectual Property" of an interesting, insightful or even astounding sexual discovery.

What happened when you got married that changed this? Sounds like your wife had some pretty sharp lawyers draw up a one-sided prenuptial agreement that would prevent you from sharing any requirements with theoretical future partners. I hope for your sake that SCO's theories of IP don't fly in court, for there would be a precedent that might prevent you from ever having sex with another party ever again!

=)