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Stallman Attacked by Ninjas
vivIsel writes "When RMS took the stage to address the Yale Political Union, Yale's venerable parliamentary debate society, it was already an unusual speech: instead of the jacket and tie customary there, he sported a T shirt, and no shoes. But then he was attacked by ninjas. Apparently some students took it into their head to duplicate an XKCD webcomic before a live audience — luckily, though, Stallman didn't resort to violence. Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM."
This is perhaps the greatest thing anyone has ever done, ever. Though it would've been better if they'd come down from the ceiling.
If Richard Stallman wants everything to be free, maybe he should create a whole bunch of decent stuff and give it away. Without license. Without license. Without license.
But where were the pirates? Clearly someone has to defend RMS against the ninjas...
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Uh, are t-shirts considered "dirty", "commie", or "hippie"? Whatever.
... I can never figure out the singular fascination that people have for what fibers other people wrap around their bodies. It gives small minds something to gossip about, and provides endless simple fun in tweaking them."
John Gilmore has been known to wear interesting clothing, too, but I don't think anybody would claim he's any of the above.
Q: "Do people have a hard time paying attention when you are not in a suit and tie?"
JG: "... At an international conference, I would not expect cultured people to stare at unfamiliar costumes.
Apparently no one told web designers at Yale how to resize photos so they don't have to use a full size, 1.6 Meg picture that's scaled down in the HTML.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
Too bad he doesn't care about his cause enough to project an aura of professionalism and courtesy. There are certain expectations when you're a GUEST speaker in a professional setting, an academic setting.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
This is, as far as I can tell, a reasonably accurate interpretation. His exact words are:
The simplest way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.
Care about privacy? Read this!
No, his purpose is to make it so all software has its source code available for modification. That's what he's here for. Think what you like of the guy, he's never veered from that purpose.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
If you ever go to the link pointed out (I know, we are in /., and RTFS is for weaklings only) ...
Instead, he delivered an excellent speech about DRM
you'll find a beautiful Minutes of the Debate in WORD.
Richard, your message was lost !
If he didn't have the annoying tendency to be right all the damn time, I think I might care about his footwear.
sic transit gloria mundi
Because the minutes of the debate are in .DOC format.
One would think that any assembly styling themselves as being open-minded and advocating open debate would be above something as petty as a dress code.
Dress codes anywhere but where the dressing is essential to the event is pointless. How is a uniform going to inspire creative thought? If what matters is what people have on their minds, why care about what they have on their bodies?
"You're infinitely more insightful than me, but you aren't wearing the special clothes, so you can't join my discussion group."
Sounds like something straight out of an elementary school playground.
Good thing he's not selling anything.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Considering how much more successful than yours his career has undoubtably been, without having had to conform to arbitrary standards of professionalism, I think it's safe to say that denouncing his work because of what he wears constitutes an almost criminal ineptitude on your part.
he is selling ideals. much more dangerous then anything you exchange money for....
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Therein lies another insight into the self-effacing brilliance of RMS. He doesn't need a suit. He's proved his worth by making his vision work, not by using the usual tricks of the trade and flim-flamming with long words, suits and "presence". Actually, that last he has in spades but it's a natural thing, not a put-on to cover up cluelessness. Whilst I don't fully agree with all of his ideals, I can't help admiring the man for his principles and ability to make things work against all odds.
It's just another part of his character: "Here I am, as asked. I'm not going to lie to you or try to make my ideals look appealing. I won't dress up the message or myself to try to divert your attention from the downsides of the issue. I'll just tell it like it is." He's 100% consistent in this and it's one of the reasons people respect the man. In my opinion this does more to help the movement than hinder it.
As for XKCD, how long until some misguided lawyer (yes, Thompson, I'm looking at you) starts to spout off about webcomics encouraging ninja attacks?
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
> One would think that any assembly styling themselves as being open-minded and advocating open debate would be
> above something as petty as a dress code.
The saddening truth is that dress code pettiness is to be obeyed when you want to address people that count (their money).
Free software wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today if its only promoters wore only jeans and T-shirts.
He's just trying to make a point. And I think he makes a great one with DRM.
Keep in mind, Stallman comes from a generational philosophy that , following Wittgenstein, notes that words have the ability to confuse, so precise language ensures your being understood. (Wittgenstein famously argued that all problems in philosophy are problems of language. Ambiguous language makes logical problems where in reality none exist. I think he backed away from the strong form of that position later on however.)
Stallman, DOESNT argue for opening up source for the utility of it, he argues for what he believes is the freedom dividend of it. Consequently, he'd like people to keep talking about freedom, and not be so distracted by the marketing.
I personally think that this tactic hasn't helped his cause an awful lot, but I certainly understand why he does it.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
"The saddening truth is that dress code pettiness is to be obeyed when you want to address people that count (their money)."
Stallman pays not only a financial price, but a social price, also. He probably does not accurately evaluate the social cost of acting differently, otherwise he would not want to pay such a high social price.
In some ways he is extremely intelligent, but socially he is a lost puppy.
Please tell me that wasn't all that he was wearing
Brocklesby Park Cricket Club
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Seems like by not dressing as other people do he's just adding more nonsense to the mix. Instead of delivering his message by speaking he's causing other people to focus on what he's wearing; generating controversy or trying to give himself a "look", instead of just giving a speech he's giving everyone other things to focus on.
e.g. Here we are, talking about his stupid dress choice, and not about his speech. If he just dressed like everyone else we would be talking about what he said, not how he dressed, but he's taking away from what he said by dressing inappropriately.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
E.g., if I created a little piece of software and dumped it into the public domain, and someone picked it up, made a slight improved version, and marketed it widely, it might eventually take over, to the point where people forgot about its origin. (Which the 'improved' version's author might not even need to disclose.) Or something could happen by random chance to knock that one source for the original version offline. From that point on, users would have lost the freedom to look at the original version.
Think of how hard it can be to find very old versions of common software projects (or old/first editions of a book) -- sometimes they're nearly impossible to find, because they're buried in references to newer versions. Newer versions tend to subsume the old. (And this ignores the rather obvious case where a party making use of some public domain code might try intentionally to expunge the original from public sources, to protect their proprietized version.)
You can't simply assume that once information is made available, it will always be available. If not maintained and copied and actively disseminated, information dies; it fades away, for a myriad of reasons. The GPL prevents this from happening by making sure that the freedom in the original version is carried forward to all downstream variants and copies.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
He's not "dressing lazy"; IIRC he simply does not own a suit. He does not believe in wasting wealth on non-essential items; this enables him to live on a relatively small income while spending most of his time pursuing the ideals he cares about. In my opinion, this attitude is much more noble than your "Hey, there's a guy with a cheap wardrobe! What a disrespectful jerk!" attitude. Expecting someone to waste hundreds of dollars to dress up like a penguin (insert Linux joke here) just to show that they "respect" you is extremely childish. Respect is a quality of interaction between people--material goods have no inherent 'respect'.
And don't try to hide behind social custom. Just because some people are (by common custom) materialistic, elitist assholes doesn't mean you have to be too.
This sounds like something that's a lot funnier when you're reading xkcd and imagining it in a marijuana-induced state than when you're actually carrying it out. Even the photos look awkward ("We're attacking you, Stallman, get it?"). And the ninja suits, sheesh.
Yes, lazy is the point...
He's spending his time and effort on things that do matter ie his talk, and doing the bare minimum on things that don't matter (ie clothes).
Suits and ties are uncomfortable...
The shoes that go with them are uncomfortable and bad for your feet
Such clothes are overpriced and a horrendous waste of money
Not only that, but dressing in a suit and tie strongly suggests you need to try and use your appearance to give some credibility to what your saying because it can't stand on it's own.
How you dress usually has no effect on your ability to complete a task, and as such you should be evaluated based on that. Obviously there are some tasks where what you wear actually has an impact, like diving.
As for "impoliteness" and "disrespect" there is nothing impolite or disrespectful about wearing a tshirt and shorts, not unless the tshirt sports an insulting slogan anyway. The idea that you need to wear particular clothes to show respect is completely contrived and totally ridiculous. It is purely down to conditioning and sheep-like herd behavior... People don't know *why* its supposed to be polite to wear a suit, they just think that it is because thats what they've been told. It's a meme that does more harm than good.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Blooming bearded hippie ought to get a job. ;-)
threadeds blog
The point is, he's not getting all worked up about ridiculous things like what people wear...
You may be blindly following a herd of sheep who believe (but don`t know why) that wearing a suit and tie makes you respectable... And your therefore willing to sacrifice comfort, practicality and money to conform to that ridiculous expectation.
RMS on the other hand will wear what he finds comfortable, because he isn't willing to sacrifice anything for a ridiculous social meme.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Sure, ditch the suit and tie. After all, it's not like Steve Jobs wears them to special events. But why go barefoot? The guy probably wears shoes outside his home, so why take them off to get on stage and deliver a speech to respected academics?
Respectable/serious attire are necessary not to convince your audience that you are right, but to convince them that you are "normal" by everybody else's standards. It's a big part of the fight right now.. to show that crippled, proprietary code is not the norm and that it is possible to have a system based on free - or at least open - code in the "real world". To show that it's not an outrageous idea. And it doesn't help when your leaders are barefoot lunatics who dislike shampoo and don't cut their hair.
I went to see him in Quito, Ecuador, at a local university. I was thinking the same thing. He was picking at his messy hair and scratching (I think) his nose. It was a pretty conservative looking crowd (especially for mainly computer science students). He delivered the whole speech in quite fluent Spanish, and the audience loved him. I got especially concerned when he went into the whole Church of Emacs thing. They are extremely Catholic down there and I half-expected someone to get offended. But they were slapping their knees laughing. I dunno, he seems to be doing an OK job to me.
You wrote:
> E.g., if I created a little piece of software and dumped it into the public domain, and someone picked it up, made a slight improved version, and marketed it widely, it might eventually take over, to the point where people forgot about its origin. (Which the 'improved' version's author might not even need to disclose.) Or something could happen by random chance to knock that one source for the original version offline. From that point on, users would have lost the freedom to look at the original version.
We nearly saw this with Samba! When Novell and Microsoft made their patent deal, Jeremy Allison (one of the core Samba maintainers) worked for Novell. They could have proprietized Samba on a patent basis, after their years of competition with it. Fortunately, Jeremy immediately resigned, with a quite publicized note that the new patent deal violates the GPL on software from Novell. But it could have been extremely nasty if Samba wound up with uncontested and unpublicized Microsoft patents embedded in it.
They're NEXT!
Left wing liberal software communist gets attacked by terrorist extremists. O'Reily celebrates. More at 9'.
Indeed, all those formal settings where he gets attacked by sunglasses ninjas being an example of how he doesn't care for being professionalism.
If he didn't have the annoying tendency to be right all the damn time, I think I might care about his footwear.
You may not, but you'll be surprised how odd certain other people (with power nonetheless) may see his behavior.
It's the world we live in. If you're sexy, you have a better chance at becoming the president of the USA.
I'm not saying Stallman should be sexy, but if he'll be pulling off such tricks, many people who could make a difference will just see him for the hippy he is and dismiss what he has to say and his entire movement.
I, at least, have to do presentations here and there to be moving my business, and realize that if you want people to figure out your message, you don't want to distract them with your odd persona, and follow basic etiquette, unless your odd persona is part of your product. And I'm not sure being barefooted is requirement for being against DRM.
Alternately, he is undoing a system that sets too much store by clothing and labels by showing people that a hugely influential and intelligent person can get where they are and change things without having to conform to other people's expectations. In that, he is trying to bring about another social change he believes is for the better. And I agree with him. Confusing the cost of someone's clothing with the value of what they're saying is a problem in our society.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
*sigh*
Where are my mod points when I need them?
The points you make are very valid... But, since I can't mod you up, I might as well inject my opinion while I'm at it. The people who are interested in what he has to say aren't the ones in suits. The people he can speak to most directly, and who he'll have the biggest sway with, are people who most likely would show up to work in the same attire.
I don't mean that to be pejorative, of course. I think MBA-having, suit wearing asskissers are just slightly more evolved than lawyers, and slightly below pond scum...
Unfortunately, until we reach the point where intelligence is more important in business than how you look and who you know (not to mention the lack of morality or compassion, which I think is assumed), those suits are exactly the people we need to be impressing.
Impress, infiltrate, overthrow.
Unless you want to get killed.
It's not that he'll shoot you if you dress as a ninja and try to sneak up on him. It's just that his speech might exceed the bullshit threshold that you can tolerate.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Exactly. In my opinion, the clothes are irrelevant and basically a filter: if you are the sort of person that will judge Stallman by his clothes, then the wisdom he has to offer is lightyears beyond your reach. It is better that you just dismiss it rather than polluting the discussion.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
Maybe that was a few years ago but when I consult I rarely wear a suit or tie although I normally wear comfortable and neat cloths. In many cases CEO's are normally suspicious of technical consultants if they wear suits although it is expected that the sales people wear suits. The main rules in the meetings I attend have nothing to do with dress code but to make sure everyone turns off their mobile and unless there are special reasons, typing on your PC or PDA is the hight of bad manners. In fact most of the consulting meetings I attend pen and paper are the preferred data entry medium.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Likewise, you make valid points about how much upper management in big business is largely informed by who you know and emulating the powerful. However, I (politely) disagree that the following is a workable strategy:
Leaving aside that there are many very nice and sincere people who simply like to wear suits and plenty of incompetents who wear combats and t-shirts, those who breaking suit prejudice amongst those who hold it cannot realistically be achieved by first conforming to the prejudice. The only workable approach is to demonstrate value whilst not conforming. To do otherwise is to sign over the value one possesses to the cause of suit-prejudice, i.e. if someone who contributes as much to free software as Richard Stallman is commonly seen wearing an expensive suit and dazzlingly coiffured hair, it simply goes to reinforce the idea that suit=competence. If he does not, his value contributes to the idea that not-wearing-suit can also equal competence. Someone who wore a suit for twenty years to become CEO and then suddenly started turning up in beach shorts and sandles, would not be seen as "overthrowing" anything. People don't work like that, no more than the Pope could suddenly reveal he's a muslim infiltrator and declare that Catholicism is now a branch of Sunnism. If you want to overcome prejudice, then the first rule is to stand by what you are.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This isn't necessarily saying that the way every company does things is the most sensible way. And great things have come from people scratching their intellectual itches, or- to put it more flatteringly- doing what really enthuses them. But the other side of the coin is that many companies would argue that they require more coherence from staff behaviour.
Your typical Slashdotter might not like this, and I'm not going to demean their choice. I'm not sure that I personally like it either. But you have to realise that this is a reflection of our underlying personalities, that we like to do things our own way. I'm a great believer in diversity of personality types, and that there is no "right" or "wrong" one.
What does this have to do with such clothes? It's that they *are* a symbolic gesture- that you're willing to do things the way others want, even if it doesn't suit you. You might argue that this is stupid and illogical, that it doesn't change your ability to do the job. But human beings aren't that "logical" in that sense anyway.
And such visual symbolism does make sense- after all, the types of people who are most unwilling to wear suits may well be the types who (though brilliant) are like herding cats when it comes to managing them. And that's not going to suit every position in every company.
It might not be perfect, but as a "willingness to do what others want" indicator and visual shortcut, it does have some functionality. Now, Stallman doesn't work for these people, that's true. But if he wants to influence them, to make them think he's got their own interests at heart, the symbolic wearing of a suit, or something similar may go a long way.
I'm well aware that people may perceive this in a knee-jerk manner as an attack on non-conformism, or consider me an apologist for the suit-wearing culture. It isn't, and I'm not. But it does grate that some people use superficial "logic" and "common sense" to justify one side of the argument, when considering the matter makes it evident that suits and similar workwear do serve a "logical" purpose. I dislike selective and superficial application of logic for purposes of self-justification. Personally, I'm not a great fit into the "suit wearing culture", but that reflects my underlying personality that I'm really not that great a team player anyway. So...
You may consider these people "sheep" or those that require such clothes stupid, but as I said before, consider that this may reflect your underlying personality- so in a way, such suits make logical sense.
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That's actually a well styled fallacy of origin, "he didn't wear shoes". I would say that if people are lame enough to dismiss the speech just for that they deserve to be controlled by the big corporations, f*cked from behind by DRM...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I'm surprised noone has mentioned it yet, but: ...That's all the airport security left him with.
The "symbolic wearing of a suit"? Surely, as he is taking a diametrically opposed viewpoint to "the suits" it's entirely appropriate for him to shun what must seem to him to be yet another stupid little restriction.
By NOT wearing a suit he's had more of an impact on the people he was addressing. By NOT wearing a suit, and presenting his arguments so well that the house sided with him will have had far more of an impact than if he'd toed the line and arrived in top-hat and tails.
There are people like Linus who represent the world of Open Source, and who are quite happy to hack the kernel and have that be the end to it. They are not overly concerned with licensing or copyright, or even Freedom. People like that don't effect global change. You need firebrands like rms to stand up in tatty clothing and say, "You are all wrong, here is my reasoning. Do you understand now?" to shake things up and get people excited, for better or worse. Bob Geldof doesn't fit into your little toe-the-line and you might do better plan either, why does he litter his rants about world-poverty with expletives? In a corporate world he'd get nowhere, but, like rms, he doesn't care what people think about him. He knows that his message is absolutely correct, and he doesn't need to fit in to make people see that.
Have you SEEN your president?!
After 100+ comments, discussing ONLY the merits of RMS presentation attire, truly, the messenger has been shot. Does the importance of presentation make more sense now?
When's the last time anyone bought a life insurance policy from a guy dressed up like a graveyard digger? We can all battle against conformance, yes. But overcoming the inherit biological prejudices of the mind in matters of perception is losing the war entirely. I don't' think it is respect, nor even appreciation. Maybe just common sense. Which seems to be lost on most brilliant minds, like RMS.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Posted anonymously to avoid Karma Whoring. Not sure if someone has already done this, but I wasn't able to find anything on first glance through the threads.
---
MINUTES OF THE FLOOR MEETING OF
THE YALE POLITICAL UNION
October 17, 2007
The Floor Meeting of the Yale Political Union held on October 17, 2007 was called to order at 7:42 p.m. in LC 102 with the Speaker, Noah Mamis, presiding.
The chairmen report the results of their last debates and announce their upcoming debates and events.
The President of the Union, Miss April Lawson, welcomes the body to the debate and introduces Richard Stallman, founder and leader of the free software movement. She summarizes a few of the terms involved in the debate.
The President moves the topic "Resolved: Digital Restrictions Management should be illegal."
Mr. Stallman believes that all software should be free, but he is instead here to argue for something less extensive: that software should not be designed to restrict their users under the control of companies. He defines Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) as the practice of making products to restrict their users. DVDs are an example: they are designed by a conspiracy of companies to restrict the users. Any company that wants to make a DVD player has to agree to restrict users in the same way; this is a matter of public record. Free software is illegal in the US, because the conspiracy won't allow it. It is legal to copy all or part of a book for some purposes; you can borrow it, sell it to a used bookstore, lend it to a friend, buy it anonymously, or keep it and use it as much as you'd like. Publishers want to take these rights away with DRM. No one could pass a law taking these freedoms away, but e-book formats prevent you from doing this, and publishers want to encourage consumers to use e-books instead of traditional books. Companies want more power over their consumers.
DRM appears in a wide range of products from a wide range of companies: Apple uses DRM as part of iTunes, Google uses DRM in the Google Earth client. Mr. Stallman does not believe we ought to force any company to make a certain product with a certain feature, but he does not want companies to deny us access to technology to prevent us from doing things they don't want us to do. Companies are using laws to deny our rights, but there is no reason to use the laws in these particular ways. Anti-trust laws prevented companies from having too much power over the marketplace, but they didn't go far enough. An oligopoly can be almost as bad as a monopoly. However, high prices are not the only problem. Now, companies want power, which is even worse. Mr. Stallman thinks we should use democracy to defend the interests of the many against the interests of the rich few. (At the body's response, Mr. Stallman asks, "Is there a doctor in the house? I think we need to perform a hiss-terectomy.")
The first part of this solution is to remove those parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that do not deal with copyright. The US government is under the thumb of the corporate conspiracy. Software that can, for instance, play a DVD, is illegal: the distributors face prosecution. The censorship system must be abolished. Corporations are extremely powerful. AACS (the follow-up to DVD technology) is used in HD-DVD and in Blu-Ray to restrict the users; the conspiracy wants to outlaw analog video outputs, which cannot be sufficiently controlled.
The "perpetrators" of this conspiracy typically argue that the consumers have agreed to buy these products, and so shouldn't complain, but this argument has been used to justify exploitative practices like low pay, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. These regulations are extremely important, because they prevent businesses from trampling us. The richest and most powerful people win politically and in the marketplace. No one can find a better product - all the DVD players on the market restrict the user.
The many should be able to work together to limi
The target audience being intelligent people.
RMS is right in wearing or not wearing whatever he wants. His message is the same one whether he wears a suit or is barefoot.
If you sincerely think that eccentricity is bad for free software publicity, then you should try to become an activist yourself and project whatever image you want. If you think free software advocates should wear a suit, then wear one yourself and go speaking at people about freedom.
RMS is a teacher: He is trying to teach you that you must value your freedom. RMS is not a superstar or celebrity. There is no reason why he should care about clothing. He just came and visited you in simple practical clothing to help you understand some issues about freedom. If people think it's better to look at his clothing instead of listening to what he has to say, then I am afraid society is still in the dark ages.
I personally see no reason why he should wear a suit, a tie, or shoes. T-Shirt and no shoes look perfectly reasonable to me.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Even in criminal organizations, like for instance Enron and the Mafia, where the suit plays a primary role in pecking order, my kids would not have the opportunity that other have. There is no suit in the world that you could put on one of my kids that would allow him or her to steal as much money or terrorize a state like the Enron people did.
The opportunity costs we impose on ourselves are primarily due to the fact that we trust a person in a suit no matter how much evidence says that we should not trust that particular person. The corollary is that we do not trust people who do not look the way we wish them to, no matter the evidence that says we should.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Dammit! Where was Stallman's katana? People even sent him a katana for situations EXACTLY like this one!
It just goes to show you what happens when you go around unprepared for ninjas. What next? Will he be caught flat-footed during a raptor attack?
It's just a simple mark of respect for the audience, showing that the event is something special that is worth preparing for.. This is why people don't go to weddings, funerals, graduations, etc, in dressing gowns (I know I find dressing gowns more comfortable, but I know the father in law would be a little annoyed)
You could say "omg you sheeple if I want to wear rainbow suspenders to your mom's funeral I will, you moron, because I don't follow arbitrary conventions like "wear black". I'm too cool and ironic to show respect and unity."
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Not true. It is, in the end, not a fundamental right,
Ok. Bad news, Good news. First, the bad news. There are no fundamental rights. There is no right to life, happiness, medicine, food, sleep, shelter, or anything. There is not even a right to a planet to live on.
Now for the good news. We get to define our rights as a society. We get to decide that life should be cherished or not. We decide that health care is a right or not. We get to decide how long a copyright lasts or not. We also get to abdicate those choices to those who are willing to put forth the effort to trump our desired rights with their desired rights.
A classic case is medicine. Certain countries have legislatively decided that a certain minimal amount of care is a fundamental right for their citizens. Other countries have decided it is only a right for those whom they feel can not afford it and yet other countries don't seem to think that health care is at all a right.
If we, the people, were as a majority serious enough about copyright and patent problems, they would go away as we would choose that path. As it is a few of us are aware of the serious problems with our current system and the extreme abusiveness many of the users of it. The average person has not been impacted yet or in other ways made aware enough as of yet to think about this before Monday Night Football. That is the way many of the rich and powerful want it. A docile flock of sheep to work and buy. This can be very profitable and easy for those already there. Almost like serfs who think they are free.
I believe that copyright and patents have their place, but the current system is so abusive that the risk of writing potentially conflicting code makes the entry into the market prohibitively expensive (if you are truly managing risk), or highly speculative if you are not. Who knows what legal minefield you might trip over reinventing some obvious software method.
The real answer to most of our problems is for the general electorate to stand up and demand proper actions. It probably will not happen, as the current leadership has enough understanding of how to keep people just pacified enough to maintain the status quo. But, given how much new technology is coming out designed solely to control the masses (not necessarily the belligerent and dangerous ones only), I expect that the current equilibrium will become much more strained as a more unbalanced socio-economic situation develops in the next 20 to 30 years.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
It's very funny how people, specially Americans, often show a very shallow comprehension of what "rights" and "liberties" are. Every rigth, whatevere it is about, *implies* restrictions on freedom: it restricts my freedom to do whatever i would do to violate your rights. Right to life means "rigth to be not murdered", eg, a prohibition on me to murder you. This is specially obvious regarding proprerty. Declaring that someone has a "right" to property is EXACTLY the same as saying that that person has the right to restrict the uses of others of whatever she is a proprietor of. So, as a corollary, to defend any right, whatever its nature, we must impose restrictions on other people's freedom. Thinking otherwise is either naive (like thinking that there "natural" rights, or "divine" rights), or wicked: you *say* you believe in peoples right, but you don't take any action tyo make them materially relevant, eg, neglecting the critical freedom-restricting process each right implies.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem