We are not obligated as a society to protect the investments of the inventors. However, if we wish to encourage such investments, then it is appropriate that we protect them. If we don't, they are likely not to occur.
The traditional tradeoff was that the inventor revealed specific information about his invention sufficient that another individual "skilled in the art" would be able to reconstruct the invention. This has never been properly implemented. It has failed in two ways: 1) the individual inventor has needed to expend significant time and money to defend the patented invention and 2) the patents have not been specific enough in their disclosure of methods and techniques to enable reasonably easy replication.
There is a third failure, which is that the system as currently constituted punishes independent invention of the covered material. This should require that the ownership of the patent is shared, rather than that the first to acquire one is able to prohibit competition. Look up the history of the Telephone or the Airplane for examples of this being a brutal failure. (At least of the stated intent. If one considers that the purpose was to create monopolies of power that could be manipulated, then it was a great success.)
It's NOT the idea that's worth protecting. That's what copyright's for. Patents should cover specific implementations.
That said, I haven't seen ANY patents in the last 10 years, so you may be correct. Perhaps there aren't any that are worthy of protection. But I doubt it, I just think that the percentage is very small.
FWIW, I agree that any patent that doesn't "make patent the invention", i.e., render it implementable by one skilled in the art, should be considered invalid, as it doesn't fulfill the purpose of patents. So I rather agree with you about the mangling of language done by lawyers.
Perhaps there aren't any patents that deserve to be issued, but there ARE inventions that deserve patents. This is, perhaps, a distinction I should have made earlier. Still, if the 95+% of the patents that should never have been issued because the "inventions" didn't merit one were removed, that alone would improve the system markedly...as long as new patents maintained the quality of the remaining ones. And even so your argument about patents that ought to be invalid because they were unintelligible (i.e., of no use to designers) remains valid...even for the ones that actually cover inventions that are worthy of being patented.
There are some patents that merit acceptance. They are characterized by substantial up front investment more than by innovative brillance. Given the current population there is sufficient brilliance around that it's not in short supply. Diciplined foregoing investment of time and money is scarcer, and that's what needs protection. So I'll grant that 95+ percent of the patents that were granted should have been rejected, but not all of them...unless you invent an alternative approach.
OTOH, I'm not sure that even with proper patent examination the current system could be made to work, as it depends on lawyers and the court system for enforcement. But that's a separate argument.
I really don't know what you expect. The only time I'd expect him to say "Upgrade NOW!" is if there were something very wrong with the prior release.
Perhaps you've been too immersed in advertisements, so that anything that isn't an ad doesn't sound right? I've NEVER been totally comfortable about any program I've written, and the things I write are small pieces compared to a kernel.
It doesn't sound like science to me. Still, a lot can frequently be done with proper reanalysis of the data.
Unfortunately, there have been a few too many similar examples where the "science" turned out to be psychology, sociology, or political science rather than the purported specialty. One thinks, e.g., of Elsevier publishing a Journal that was totally funded by one of the major durg companies, and where all the reviewers worked for that company. It took several years for that one to come to light.
So I'm dubious about the honesty of the revisions, though who whas lying, and who was being deceived, and who was just keepign quiet is a bit difficult to determine.
But it *could* be honest. That's just not the way I would bet.
Yeah? So it's cheap to manufacture and there won't be any excessive patent fees?
Sorry, this sounds either useless or an attempt to create a brand new exploitive monopoly. Can't tell which from here, but I'd be extremely surprised if it were as cheap to make as ammonium nitrate.
KDevelop3 supported Python. When i've tried to use KDevelop4, it has NOT supported Python. Perhaps that's just the Debian repository version, but I haven't seen any prior indication that this is the case. The evidence that I've seen is that KDevelop4 supports C and C++ and that's it.
KDevelop3 was a good development environment. It supported many languages. KDevelop4, last I checked, supported C++ and C. If that's all you need, it may be a decent environment.
OTOH, even KDevelop3 was oriented to Qt. If you wanted a different GUI library it was an uphill battle. (Not necessarily a hard one, but you were swimming upstream.) With KDevelop4 I'm not sure you have any alternatives, but I'll admit I didn't check carefully, as my development isn't focused around C/C++... largely because they don't handle Unicode well. So I tend to use D or Python or Ruby or even Java. Each have their drawbacks and their strengths.
P.S.: My C has gotten so rusty that it would be a struggle to resurrect it, and C++ has changed so much since I used it significantly that it's hardly the same language. So I haven't much basis to evaluate KDevelop4 for other users...except to say that if you aren't using C or C++ it's probably not worth looking at, and if you aren't using the Qt libraries, expect a bit of a struggle.
Is that really spamming? I don't think so. And I don't even think he's trolling. The most reasonable assessment I've seen is that he's off his meds. OTOH, if there actually were a lawsuit, perhaps he should mention what court it's in front of (near the top, as I don't read much of his posting). If there were reliable information that one could judge on, it might be reasonable to alter my opinion.
Since the way he intends to use it include redistributing it with changes, I stand by my original statement. The MySQL business model depended on being able to license copies of the code with proprietary modifications under a non-GPL license. This business model is now not legally possible.
While it is true that if you don't distribute the code, the GPL doesn't place any restrictions on your usage, that isn't the state of a database distribution. Now he needs to switch to a model that focuses more on providing consulting services. Some companies have been successful, but it's not a particularly easy path.
The code base is now purely GPL. They no longer own the copyrights, so they don't have a proprietary version to sell.
OTOH, I really want to avoid having anything to do with Oracle, but I haven't been able to come up with a decent alternative to Java for my current project. I've looked as afar as Scheme (well, Racket), which was almost good enough. I built a small prototype of one section in Ruby, but it was unbearably slow. (Python was a bit better, but not much.) D was a good choice, but it's really deficient in libraries. C and C++ are horrible at handling unicode, garbage collection, MPUs, etc. (Yes, you can do anything in C, but it can take arbitrarily large amounts of code.) Ada was a reasonable choice, except that it's type system was overly constraining. If I had a second choice to the language, it would be Ada, but Java was so much superior that.... well, I know that it's licensed under the GPL, but Oracle has proven so untrustworthy that I'm still hesitant.
So if I were picking a database, I would NOT choose MySQL. MariaDB at least is a system that Oracle probably can't touch. (Nothing is sure when unethical lawyers are involved, but it's probably true.)
That said, I really don't like systems that have a global database, and for my purposes an embedded database is probably superior. So I'm currently planning on using H2, though I haven't really decided yet. Since that's Java specific, if I decide that I just can't trust Java, I'll need to switch to another database. For my purposes, though, I really don't need the complexity of SQL. It makes things only slightly better. Perhaps I'll go with Tokyo or Kyoto Cabinet.
Sorry, but Oracle and MySQL are playing to different audiences. The number of Oracle database customers is a lot smaller than the number of MySQL users, but I doubt that you could justly claim that less money is involved, and it's the money that Oracle (the company) cares about.
That said, though the MySQL community has the largest number of users, that's not at all the same as the largest number of active database program developers. I'd need some evidence for any claim that the MySQL project has more active developers than any particular other project (and I doubt that the evidence is publicly available). OTOH, I will agree that the number of active developers is less significant than the quality of those developers, and the quality of the management of those developers. Perhaps this article is evidence of an attempt to improve the MySQL project's management of the developers. (I'm not convinced that it's evidence of movement in the direction of improvement, but it may well be evidence of an attempt at movement in the direction of improvement.)
He doesn't need to recreate it. What he needs to do is figure out how to build a profitable company around it, now that he only has a GPL codebase (as he sold the other one to Oracle).
I don't give him good odds, but I also don't think it's impossible.
P.S.: Yes, the code in the GPL codebase is essentially the same as the code in the non-GPL codebase, but the ways you can legally use it are different.
Well, as I understand it (uncertainly) this is saying that they want to make the application previously known as JBoss more specific to Red Hat products.
I've got a lot of uncertainty that that's actually what they were saying. They might have just been putting everyone on notice that they had control of it, and could do what they want.
In any case, it results in my being less willing to trust Red Hat to manage projects that I depend upon. (Or, to put it more correctly, it makes me less willing to depend upon projects managed by Red Hat.)
OTOH, I'm not a Java user anyway, so this doesn't directly impact me. Perhaps those more involved with JBoss could offer a better explanation. But it would be difficult to offer one that didn't say that this demonstrated Red Hat exerting unilateral control over JBoss. (Unless, of course, the summary has been written in a horribly biased way.)
Well, i could go into a long involved explanation of exactly what I meant by "with GPL it's the code that's free", but I'll agree that it's a possibly confusing shorthand for an argument that might well take a paragraph to explain precisely.
Yes, the moral agent is not (yet) the code itself, and when the code does become a moral agent it will not be protectable by the GPL. So interpreted literally that statement is false. It is a shorthand for (approximately) "The GPL is a license intended to ensure that future developments around any particular code base will remain free, and is intended to ensure that any useful code that is licensed under that license will remain useful to a wide community of users and developers as it is further developed." Even that's an oversimplification of the actual idea for which "The code is free (as opposed to the developer)" is intended to stand as shorthand. A full statement would probably be longer than the license...and different practitioners would argue over details of the meaning even then. So if the shorthand phrase isn't sufficient, probably the best thing is to point you to the license. (The GPL version 2, as least, is pretty easy to understand, even though not all details are totally clear. )
If it doesn't suit your purposes, then use code that's under another license. For some purposes it's not the correct license. For other purposes it's hard to improve on.
The distinction is that with GPL it's the code that's free, and with BSD it's the receiving developer. Both are legitimate models of freedom.
As to FreeBSD not keeping up with Linux, it's largely because when people make a contribution, they don't want someone else to hide it away, make changes, and then keep them from access to those changes. The GPL ensures that the code stays free. The BSD gives the freedom to the receiving developer... which isn't to the benefit of the donating developer. So a greater proportion of people are willing to develop GPL code. (Please note that in either case the proportion of developers using that specified license if very small. But closed source code tends to die faster than open source code, so over time open source code accumulates....though even open source code experiences bit-rot, which is why I didn't keep Gnome2 installed on my computer, even though I despise Gnome3 AND KDE4. Currently I'm using KDE4 as slightly less bad, and distros that tried to stick with Gnome2 are closing shop. Maybe Mate will eventually be an answer. But open source code also experiences bit rot...just not as rapidly as closed source code. This is relevant because BSD licensed code tends to become closed source as different groups apply changes to it and then relicense it. GPL code is less affected by this problem (though "less" certainly doesn't mean "not affected").
If you write the code, the GPL doesn't prevent you from including it in commercial products. You're the copyright holder, so you can relicense it to suit yourself.
While your point has merit, context is a really tricky problem. A weight is something simple and easy...and could be implemented without slowing things down much.
OTOH, I certainly feel that individuals shouls be able to adjust the weights easily.
Question: Should the CA be able to determine whether or not a particular site trusts them? If not, how do you indicate the amount of trust (since you don't want to just block)? Things get complicated quickly.
FWIW, I don't thing ANY of the certificate issuing authorities are trustworthy. This doesn't mean that some aren't worse then others, and it might make sense to revoke the trust you have given to some of the worst actors, if you can do so without TOO much cost to yourself. If nothing else it would ensure that the infrastructure is in place to do the revokation. And it would encourage the weaker authorities to avoid being excessively vile.
The down side is that this will be interpreted by some as a statement that you trust those you don't revoke the certificates of.
More to the point, ownership is not a right that can be defined in the absence of government....and here "government" has to be defined as "use or threat of overriding force".
Note that in this sense social animals have government, so it's broader than the normal use of the term.
For that matter, I equate "natural right" to "evolutionarily stable strategy", which means that it alters with the environment, and isn't something stable. It's also worth remembering that "money" is a government invention (King Cyrus of the Persians, IIRC) and was originally a promise that the item being offered was actually as represented. (I.e., a small bar of gold with the royal seal embossed on it.) But do note that counterfeiting arose amost immediately, so there's nothing "natural" about it without the presence of overriding force.
You're assuming that the reason for the warnings is to save lives...
It's actually purely to get themselves off the hook after lives are lost. Plausible deniability!
I am curious. How do you know the mind of every product manufacturer in the world?
He uses introspection and projects the results.
This is actually, however, a pretty reasonable claim. Just about everyone wants to be able to deny that they made a mistake that injured people. (Some people want to do it on purpose, of course.) Saying that they want plausible deniability isn't saying that's their only reason. Or even that it's their major reason, though it would clearly be important to any sensible manager.
I don't know if it's just you, but to me it sounds like a reason for governments to discourage IPv6. The way it is now they don't need to reveal which of those sites they really wanted to block, which means any fabricated story will work.
FRAND is an agreement among the in-group to increase their ability to compete with those not a member of the in-group. It serves little, if any, other function. Who gets to determine what's a fair and reasonable price? It's not you if you don't have deep pockets.
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We are not obligated as a society to protect the investments of the inventors. However, if we wish to encourage such investments, then it is appropriate that we protect them. If we don't, they are likely not to occur.
The traditional tradeoff was that the inventor revealed specific information about his invention sufficient that another individual "skilled in the art" would be able to reconstruct the invention. This has never been properly implemented. It has failed in two ways: 1) the individual inventor has needed to expend significant time and money to defend the patented invention and 2) the patents have not been specific enough in their disclosure of methods and techniques to enable reasonably easy replication.
There is a third failure, which is that the system as currently constituted punishes independent invention of the covered material. This should require that the ownership of the patent is shared, rather than that the first to acquire one is able to prohibit competition. Look up the history of the Telephone or the Airplane for examples of this being a brutal failure. (At least of the stated intent. If one considers that the purpose was to create monopolies of power that could be manipulated, then it was a great success.)
It's NOT the idea that's worth protecting. That's what copyright's for. Patents should cover specific implementations.
That said, I haven't seen ANY patents in the last 10 years, so you may be correct. Perhaps there aren't any that are worthy of protection. But I doubt it, I just think that the percentage is very small.
FWIW, I agree that any patent that doesn't "make patent the invention", i.e., render it implementable by one skilled in the art, should be considered invalid, as it doesn't fulfill the purpose of patents. So I rather agree with you about the mangling of language done by lawyers.
Perhaps there aren't any patents that deserve to be issued, but there ARE inventions that deserve patents. This is, perhaps, a distinction I should have made earlier. Still, if the 95+% of the patents that should never have been issued because the "inventions" didn't merit one were removed, that alone would improve the system markedly...as long as new patents maintained the quality of the remaining ones. And even so your argument about patents that ought to be invalid because they were unintelligible (i.e., of no use to designers) remains valid...even for the ones that actually cover inventions that are worthy of being patented.
There are some patents that merit acceptance. They are characterized by substantial up front investment more than by innovative brillance. Given the current population there is sufficient brilliance around that it's not in short supply. Diciplined foregoing investment of time and money is scarcer, and that's what needs protection. So I'll grant that 95+ percent of the patents that were granted should have been rejected, but not all of them...unless you invent an alternative approach.
OTOH, I'm not sure that even with proper patent examination the current system could be made to work, as it depends on lawyers and the court system for enforcement. But that's a separate argument.
I really don't know what you expect. The only time I'd expect him to say "Upgrade NOW!" is if there were something very wrong with the prior release.
Perhaps you've been too immersed in advertisements, so that anything that isn't an ad doesn't sound right? I've NEVER been totally comfortable about any program I've written, and the things I write are small pieces compared to a kernel.
It doesn't sound like science to me. Still, a lot can frequently be done with proper reanalysis of the data.
Unfortunately, there have been a few too many similar examples where the "science" turned out to be psychology, sociology, or political science rather than the purported specialty. One thinks, e.g., of Elsevier publishing a Journal that was totally funded by one of the major durg companies, and where all the reviewers worked for that company. It took several years for that one to come to light.
So I'm dubious about the honesty of the revisions, though who whas lying, and who was being deceived, and who was just keepign quiet is a bit difficult to determine.
But it *could* be honest. That's just not the way I would bet.
Yeah? So it's cheap to manufacture and there won't be any excessive patent fees?
Sorry, this sounds either useless or an attempt to create a brand new exploitive monopoly. Can't tell which from here, but I'd be extremely surprised if it were as cheap to make as ammonium nitrate.
KDevelop3 supported Python. When i've tried to use KDevelop4, it has NOT supported Python. Perhaps that's just the Debian repository version, but I haven't seen any prior indication that this is the case. The evidence that I've seen is that KDevelop4 supports C and C++ and that's it.
IIUC, Lazarus is limited to Pascal. (You did, admittedly, compare it to Delphi, so you already indicated that, but it should be made explicit.)
KDevelop3 was a good development environment. It supported many languages. KDevelop4, last I checked, supported C++ and C. If that's all you need, it may be a decent environment.
OTOH, even KDevelop3 was oriented to Qt. If you wanted a different GUI library it was an uphill battle. (Not necessarily a hard one, but you were swimming upstream.) With KDevelop4 I'm not sure you have any alternatives, but I'll admit I didn't check carefully, as my development isn't focused around C/C++ ... largely because they don't handle Unicode well. So I tend to use D or Python or Ruby or even Java. Each have their drawbacks and their strengths.
P.S.: My C has gotten so rusty that it would be a struggle to resurrect it, and C++ has changed so much since I used it significantly that it's hardly the same language. So I haven't much basis to evaluate KDevelop4 for other users...except to say that if you aren't using C or C++ it's probably not worth looking at, and if you aren't using the Qt libraries, expect a bit of a struggle.
Is that really spamming? I don't think so. And I don't even think he's trolling. The most reasonable assessment I've seen is that he's off his meds. OTOH, if there actually were a lawsuit, perhaps he should mention what court it's in front of (near the top, as I don't read much of his posting). If there were reliable information that one could judge on, it might be reasonable to alter my opinion.
Since the way he intends to use it include redistributing it with changes, I stand by my original statement. The MySQL business model depended on being able to license copies of the code with proprietary modifications under a non-GPL license. This business model is now not legally possible.
While it is true that if you don't distribute the code, the GPL doesn't place any restrictions on your usage, that isn't the state of a database distribution. Now he needs to switch to a model that focuses more on providing consulting services. Some companies have been successful, but it's not a particularly easy path.
The code base is now purely GPL. They no longer own the copyrights, so they don't have a proprietary version to sell.
OTOH, I really want to avoid having anything to do with Oracle, but I haven't been able to come up with a decent alternative to Java for my current project. I've looked as afar as Scheme (well, Racket), which was almost good enough. I built a small prototype of one section in Ruby, but it was unbearably slow. (Python was a bit better, but not much.) D was a good choice, but it's really deficient in libraries. C and C++ are horrible at handling unicode, garbage collection, MPUs, etc. (Yes, you can do anything in C, but it can take arbitrarily large amounts of code.) Ada was a reasonable choice, except that it's type system was overly constraining. If I had a second choice to the language, it would be Ada, but Java was so much superior that.... well, I know that it's licensed under the GPL, but Oracle has proven so untrustworthy that I'm still hesitant.
So if I were picking a database, I would NOT choose MySQL. MariaDB at least is a system that Oracle probably can't touch. (Nothing is sure when unethical lawyers are involved, but it's probably true.)
That said, I really don't like systems that have a global database, and for my purposes an embedded database is probably superior. So I'm currently planning on using H2, though I haven't really decided yet. Since that's Java specific, if I decide that I just can't trust Java, I'll need to switch to another database. For my purposes, though, I really don't need the complexity of SQL. It makes things only slightly better. Perhaps I'll go with Tokyo or Kyoto Cabinet.
Sorry, but Oracle and MySQL are playing to different audiences. The number of Oracle database customers is a lot smaller than the number of MySQL users, but I doubt that you could justly claim that less money is involved, and it's the money that Oracle (the company) cares about.
That said, though the MySQL community has the largest number of users, that's not at all the same as the largest number of active database program developers. I'd need some evidence for any claim that the MySQL project has more active developers than any particular other project (and I doubt that the evidence is publicly available). OTOH, I will agree that the number of active developers is less significant than the quality of those developers, and the quality of the management of those developers. Perhaps this article is evidence of an attempt to improve the MySQL project's management of the developers. (I'm not convinced that it's evidence of movement in the direction of improvement, but it may well be evidence of an attempt at movement in the direction of improvement.)
He doesn't need to recreate it. What he needs to do is figure out how to build a profitable company around it, now that he only has a GPL codebase (as he sold the other one to Oracle).
I don't give him good odds, but I also don't think it's impossible.
P.S.: Yes, the code in the GPL codebase is essentially the same as the code in the non-GPL codebase, but the ways you can legally use it are different.
Well, as I understand it (uncertainly) this is saying that they want to make the application previously known as JBoss more specific to Red Hat products.
I've got a lot of uncertainty that that's actually what they were saying. They might have just been putting everyone on notice that they had control of it, and could do what they want.
In any case, it results in my being less willing to trust Red Hat to manage projects that I depend upon. (Or, to put it more correctly, it makes me less willing to depend upon projects managed by Red Hat.)
OTOH, I'm not a Java user anyway, so this doesn't directly impact me. Perhaps those more involved with JBoss could offer a better explanation. But it would be difficult to offer one that didn't say that this demonstrated Red Hat exerting unilateral control over JBoss. (Unless, of course, the summary has been written in a horribly biased way.)
Well, i could go into a long involved explanation of exactly what I meant by "with GPL it's the code that's free", but I'll agree that it's a possibly confusing shorthand for an argument that might well take a paragraph to explain precisely.
Yes, the moral agent is not (yet) the code itself, and when the code does become a moral agent it will not be protectable by the GPL. So interpreted literally that statement is false. It is a shorthand for (approximately) "The GPL is a license intended to ensure that future developments around any particular code base will remain free, and is intended to ensure that any useful code that is licensed under that license will remain useful to a wide community of users and developers as it is further developed." Even that's an oversimplification of the actual idea for which "The code is free (as opposed to the developer)" is intended to stand as shorthand. A full statement would probably be longer than the license...and different practitioners would argue over details of the meaning even then. So if the shorthand phrase isn't sufficient, probably the best thing is to point you to the license. (The GPL version 2, as least, is pretty easy to understand, even though not all details are totally clear. )
If it doesn't suit your purposes, then use code that's under another license. For some purposes it's not the correct license. For other purposes it's hard to improve on.
I believe that one of you is wrong. Whether it's you or RMS I don't know, but I suspect that you are misinterpreting something he said.
The distinction is that with GPL it's the code that's free, and with BSD it's the receiving developer. Both are legitimate models of freedom.
As to FreeBSD not keeping up with Linux, it's largely because when people make a contribution, they don't want someone else to hide it away, make changes, and then keep them from access to those changes. The GPL ensures that the code stays free. The BSD gives the freedom to the receiving developer ... which isn't to the benefit of the donating developer. So a greater proportion of people are willing to develop GPL code. (Please note that in either case the proportion of developers using that specified license if very small. But closed source code tends to die faster than open source code, so over time open source code accumulates....though even open source code experiences bit-rot, which is why I didn't keep Gnome2 installed on my computer, even though I despise Gnome3 AND KDE4. Currently I'm using KDE4 as slightly less bad, and distros that tried to stick with Gnome2 are closing shop. Maybe Mate will eventually be an answer. But open source code also experiences bit rot...just not as rapidly as closed source code.
This is relevant because BSD licensed code tends to become closed source as different groups apply changes to it and then relicense it. GPL code is less affected by this problem (though "less" certainly doesn't mean "not affected").
If you write the code, the GPL doesn't prevent you from including it in commercial products. You're the copyright holder, so you can relicense it to suit yourself.
While your point has merit, context is a really tricky problem. A weight is something simple and easy...and could be implemented without slowing things down much.
OTOH, I certainly feel that individuals shouls be able to adjust the weights easily.
Question: Should the CA be able to determine whether or not a particular site trusts them? If not, how do you indicate the amount of trust (since you don't want to just block)? Things get complicated quickly.
Not quite clear what you are reccommending here.
FWIW, I don't thing ANY of the certificate issuing authorities are trustworthy. This doesn't mean that some aren't worse then others, and it might make sense to revoke the trust you have given to some of the worst actors, if you can do so without TOO much cost to yourself. If nothing else it would ensure that the infrastructure is in place to do the revokation. And it would encourage the weaker authorities to avoid being excessively vile.
The down side is that this will be interpreted by some as a statement that you trust those you don't revoke the certificates of.
More to the point, ownership is not a right that can be defined in the absence of government....and here "government" has to be defined as "use or threat of overriding force".
Note that in this sense social animals have government, so it's broader than the normal use of the term.
For that matter, I equate "natural right" to "evolutionarily stable strategy", which means that it alters with the environment, and isn't something stable. It's also worth remembering that "money" is a government invention (King Cyrus of the Persians, IIRC) and was originally a promise that the item being offered was actually as represented. (I.e., a small bar of gold with the royal seal embossed on it.) But do note that counterfeiting arose amost immediately, so there's nothing "natural" about it without the presence of overriding force.
He uses introspection and projects the results.
This is actually, however, a pretty reasonable claim. Just about everyone wants to be able to deny that they made a mistake that injured people. (Some people want to do it on purpose, of course.) Saying that they want plausible deniability isn't saying that's their only reason. Or even that it's their major reason, though it would clearly be important to any sensible manager.
I don't know if it's just you, but to me it sounds like a reason for governments to discourage IPv6. The way it is now they don't need to reveal which of those sites they really wanted to block, which means any fabricated story will work.
FRAND is an agreement among the in-group to increase their ability to compete with those not a member of the in-group. It serves little, if any, other function. Who gets to determine what's a fair and reasonable price? It's not you if you don't have deep pockets.