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The FSF's Donald Robertson Talks About Copyrights, Patents, and the TPP (Video)
We all know (or know about) Richard M. Stallmann, founder of and vociferous spokesman for the Free Software Foundation. But the organization is far from a one-man band, and Donald Robertson, their copyright administrator (and wearer of several other hats as well) is the person to turn to when you want to get into the murky depths of copyright and patent law. He's also somewhat of an expert on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the FSF says, '...has a number of truly dangerous provisions that harm software freedom."
What can you do to help stop this trade agreement that has gotten the FSF (and the EFF, among others) up in arms? Don answers that question in the video (and accompanying transcript for those who would rather read than watch). And any unanswered questions will probably be taken care of in a second video interview with Mr. Robertson that we plan to run in the next day or two.
What can you do to help stop this trade agreement that has gotten the FSF (and the EFF, among others) up in arms? Don answers that question in the video (and accompanying transcript for those who would rather read than watch). And any unanswered questions will probably be taken care of in a second video interview with Mr. Robertson that we plan to run in the next day or two.
Yeah, I know that RMS supports Leftist candidates, like he did Nader and Kucinich in earlier elections. However, this time, while Sanders is solidly opposed to the TPP, Hilary has been on both sides of this issue. And Sanders won't be the party nominee, unless she goes to jail.
So if the election ends up being b/w Trump/Cruz - both consistent opponents of TPP - vs Hilary, who will the FSF support in the general elections? The candidates who are consistently against it, even if they're not Leftist, or the one who supports or opposes it depending on her mood?
Maybe instead of a "one-man band," it's a three-man band: Stallman, Moglen, and this third guy we've never heard of.
The FSF objects to the use of a lot of terms, "intellectual property" for one and RMS's insistence on systems being called "GNU/Linux" but the really objectionable term is "Free Software". When you put "free" in front of something that usually has a monetary cost with it the general assumption is that that thing is now offered free of monetary cost which is why there is often confusion around "Free Software". It is supposed to be about freedom so call it "Freedom Software".
also some of the GOP want to add more H-1B's to take the high tech jobs.
also some of the GOP want to add more H-1B's to take the high tech jobs.
Don't hang that all on us. Several deep-pocketed tech "leaders" donate heavily to the folks on the other side of the aisle as well...
>> a second video interview with Mr. Robertson
One second SlashDot interviews? Even I can get behind that.
huh?
community based come as you are guaranteed to raise all of our senses at once,, what a gig
What can you do to help stop this trade agreement...
... the answer is to join a mailing list?!?! Come on!
I totally understand that the FSF is still getting their plan in order, but the editors shouldn't lead with it if there's no answer yet. It's like those awful news blurbs, "what common condiment could be killing you RIGHT NOW!?! Find out more during our broadcast tomorrow."
I also don't get why this was split into two. There's hardly any content in this one.. where's the rest of the interview?
What can you do to help stop this trade agreement that has gotten the FSF (and the EFF, among others) up in arms?
It should be "which has", not "that has". The latter changes the meaning to suggest that "What you can do" is what's getting the FSF and EFF et al. up in arms, rather than the TPP.
He didn't even bother singing the free software song.
I've thought about this many times myself over the years. At worst, it seems to be bait-and-switch.
You're right, it's bait-and-switch.
There's a similar bait-and-switch that happens with the terms "use" and "utilize".
If you are a layman, the terms are the same: "I am utilizing Microsoft Word to make a brochure"/"I am using Microsoft Word for my business cards".
For a software engineer, the distinction is important, when referring to source code: "I am utilizing emacs to take a portion of the source code of emacs and use it in a derivative work".
And no, this is not accidental. It's amazing how many people apply the GPL to their code, without the understanding that the GPL is an instrumentality of a political agenda, and thus have never read "The GNU Manifesto" to understand the emergent properties that the GPL is designed to cause to come to fruition from its use.
The GNU Manifesto: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifes...
Not just that, both parties are split on this issue. On the Dem side, I don't know any candidate who isn't for open borders, which is more lethal to American workers than just a certain specified number of H1B holders. On the GOP side, Cruz and Rubio seem to be against increasing H1Bs, while only Bush and maybe Christie is for it. Trump has said that he's for any immigration as long as it is done legally but hasn't said what he thinks of H1B caps being raised. I have no idea where Carson stands
It moves jobs to China, it moves profits to offshore tax havens.
It's an abomination of a treaty, negotiated in secret, by a group of corporate lawyers writing their own companies profit guarantees into law.
The 'corporate sovereignty' is nothing but a coup. Taking the lawmaking ability from elected governments and handing it to a court of corporate lawyers. Corp doesn't like a national law? It can go to this foreign kangaroo court and have it squashed.
Similar clauses are already being used to force countries to remove tobacco bans. Now we find (no surprises) that Big Tobacco companies have been paying bribes to officials... well duh! Why the fuck do you think we have that clause in TPP? Which politician would ever agree to signing over sovereignty of their own country to a bunch of foreign lawyers?? That would be tantamount to treason.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34964603
H1B's wouldn't be so bad if they were used as intended. To allow tech firms to hire highly-qualified foreign students out of Stanford, etc, to fill positions at high skill levels that are genuinely hard to fill. But as we've all seen, H1B's are being used en masse by Indian outsourcing firms to bring in one or two lead developers who then suck all the knowledge they can (rarely enough be be effective, btw) from their American counterparts and use it to train offshore assets. And judging by the (lack of) quality of those offshore assets (and some of the onshore ones), the positions in question could easily be filled by American workers - in fact, they already are.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I guess my point is that this kind of program isn't inherently bad, but as implemented (or policed) they are ripe for abuse. Same goes for the repeal of Glass-Steagle. When you loosen regulations and then don't even try to enforce what's left, you get mass layoffs and housing bubbles. And forget blaming Fannie Mae. The housing bubble was caused by the bond ratings agencies that rubber stamped any crappy mortgage-backed security as AAA and AIG, which pretended to insure them. In other words fraud - plain and simple. None of it would've been possible without that.
That's where the GOP comes in. They are ideologically against almost all regulation. Don't know if that's real ideology, or just convenient think-tank bullshit that happens to suit the needs of their donors. Whatever else you might say, you can't say the Dems are against sensible regulations and enforcement. You might say they tend to go overboard, but that's just an argument for the two parties balancing each other. Except today's GOP won't accept any kind of balance either. Look at the highway bill just passed. 'Payed for' by a laundry list of bogus gimmicks when a raise in the gas tax (which would be pretty painless with gas prices way down - and would probably help to keep them down) would be a no-brainer. But it's a tax - so Republicans can't vote for it. Sheesh...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Thanks for posting the video using Flash instead of, I don't know... HTML5.
"Yeah, there is no submarine copyright. It is either you’ve seen another work and you are copying it and therefore you know, as the person who is doing the copying that you are doing it, or you are not copying at all."
I wonder if Mr. Robertson has heard of Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music and Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton. In both cases, a plaintiff owning copyright in a musical composition successfully argued that a songwriter should be held liable for having accidentally copied the plaintiff's song after having heard it performed on the radio years ago. The wide exposure given to popular music through radio and other mass media essentially turns a copyright into a patent on a short snatch of melody, where it can be presumed that other composers will have heard it at least once. And I find this dangerous for the viability of releasing video games as free software.
I didn't need non-free Flash because I just read the transcript in Firefox on GNU/Linux.
I've tended to use the term "use" to mean use of a program as a tool, which FSF calls freedom 0, and "reuse" to mean use of a program as a software library, freedoms 1 through 3.
Just to be clear: The questioner asked if the "FSF will endorse TPP opponents" and the parent response answered in the affirmative them went on to describe how Richard Stallman (RMS) did this. But RMS is not the FSF and vice versa; RMS endorsing candidates isn't the same as the FSF endorsing candidates. I've never seen the FSF endorse a candidate and I don't know of anything that would lead me to believe the FSF will endorse a candidate for a political race anywhere. I'm pretty sure this separation between himself and the FSF is important to both the FSF and RMS, and why RMS maintains his own website and posts some articles there expressing his own views including the text "This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman. The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project." on the front page of stallman.org.
Digital Citizen
Why do these videos suck so much? There are bus sounds in this whole video. There's a recent video set in a (noisy) bar, and a creepy female coder video. Is it a tradition? Does it go way back? I have been visiting this site for some time, but I have no idea if this is a thing (over my head) or the videos just suck. What is this shit?
H1B is bad. Green cards and quick path to citizenship is good. Say no to indentured servants!