They have gone from TBL's origional HyperCard inspired idea for the WWW (which he admits didn't live up to his vision of an easy to edit & publish system) to promoting an overly complicated XML driven inteface which acts as a high barrier to entry.
Well said.
I think it would be worthwhile to create a good, non-proprietary standard which addresses the problems you pointed out. "Industry support" for this new standard would be zero at first, that might actually be good as this will make it easier to create a good standard, as commercial interests and related politics won't get in the way.
I believe that if we can create a good standard, it will evetually take off, even if Microsoft isn't interested in supporting it. Microsoft won't manage to dominate the IT landscape forever.
I wonder what'll happen in the EU anti-trust sanctions. If they manage to get off the hook there, it'll be hard to convinve me that they didn't buy the European politicians.
The only possible privacy issues would be the identity of the programmers. GPL code does not "taint" data, which is not always the case with proprietary software.
What I was thinking of was privacy related to how I run my business. GPL'd software, and free software in general, gives me the freedom of modifying the software to reflect how I do things, without requiring me to disclose workflow-related information to competitors.
The new version of the Shared Source License, called a "EULA" (End User
License Agreement), will be available later this week on Microsoft's embedded website.
Why don't we wait with discussing this until the actual license text is
available, so that we can see what the article is talking about?
Maybe, as the "the revised Shared Source terms are reminiscent of the BSD open
source license" remark in the article seems to indicate, this is actually a
free software / open source license. Maybe there are still some unacceptable
strings attached. How are we supposed to think something good or bad about
the new license just based on this article which is obviously written by
someone who is not very familar with software licenses. (The article says about
the GPL that it "obligates developers to make their modifications available
to the public." That is incorrect. If you distribute a GPL-licensed program
to someone, you have to make sure that the recipient can get the source code.
You are however not required to make modifications available to the public.
In practice, modifications are very often made available to the public,
but this is an important distinction to keep in mind, especially when
thinking about privacy issues, and also when thinking about commercial GPL licensing of software
packages for the expected number of customers is small).
As a contract, the GPL is enforced by the civil courts.
The GPL is a license, not a contract. Hence a GPL violation is a copyright violation, not a contract violation. Unauthorized copying and distribution of films is also a copyright violation. Apart from this new law (which makes one of them but not the other a criminal matter) GPL violations and camcorder rule violations are fundamentally the same things.
The civil court system is subsidized by tax dollars.
The civil court system is certainly important enough that such subsidies can be justified.
But even if it were not, that would be a foolish objection. Two wrongs don't make a right, so even if the GPL were not getting its fair share of tax dollars, fairness would not be increased by also denying those whose jobs depend on the movie industry the right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods.
Since when is there a "right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods"? Such a right would imply that every industry has a right to industry-specific legislation to protect that particular industry.
How do you justify the unfair advantage that this kind of law gives movie studios that want to prevent leaks over competing movie studies which want to take a more relaxed attitude?
And which specific movie studios like to have bad theater-taped copies floating around giving their films a bad name?
This is an issue that can be solved easily and inexpensively: movie studios which are concerned about this could simply distribute high-quality versions on their films via P2P filesharing.
So if it it makes you feel better, you can think of it as a little bit of their money being invested to protect their livelihoods. What could be more just than that?
How do you justify movie industry tax money being spent on enforcing a "no camcorders" rule, but tax money from free software businesses not being spent on GPL enforcement?
How do you justify the unfair advantage that this kind of law gives movie studios that want to prevent leaks over competing movie studies which want to take a more relaxed attitude?
Note also that the costs will be minimal. The law does not require a policeman in each theater, any more than laws against shoplifting require a cop in each store. The potential for the theater to call the cops will function primarily as a deterrent, and the number of arrests will be very small.
You're right. This law in itself isn't a big problem - at least it isn't for me (there are many better ways for spending my time than watching illegally-copied films). But I consider it a big problem that apparantly politicians think that this type of law is right and just.
Its a nonviolent crime that in itself removes about 19.95 (price of a new DVD) from the economy.
Here the goal of the movie companies is to prevent copies of the film from showing up on P2P filesharing before they start selling DVDs of the film (at that stage it's impossible to prevent). Hence a single camcorder rule violation might cause millions of people to watch an illegal copy of the film in the convenience of their own homes instead of going out to the movie theater.
I do think that it's justified to impose stiff penalties for transgressions that cause huge economic damages. However I think that all the costs related to sending transgressors to jail (at least those who don't have enough money to fully recompensate the movie studios for their lost profits) should be borne by those companies which have chosen a business model that requires the use of such extreme enforcement measures.
You're taking a copy of something that doesn't belong to you. If that isn't stealing, what is it?
It's copyright infringement (and if there's a rule against camcorders in cinemas, then it's also a form of NDA violation), but it's not theft.
The difference is that if you steal something from me, I don't have it anymore. If you infringe my copyright, I still have my creative work, but I'm likely to make less money from it.
If you steal my car, then tomorrow I can't use it to go out with my famaily. The time that I could have spent in a nice place with my family will never come back, hence it is possible that I may suffer harm of a kind which cannot be put right with money. The point here is that even if I had insurance against car theft which pays me the exact value of the car that was stolen from me, I'll still be very annoyed about the car theft, because I have suffered a kind of harm that cannot be put right with money.
Copyright infringement and NDA violations on the other hand result in damages which consist only in lost profits. (Of course in principle, lost profits can also result in damages of the kind that cannot be put right with money, for example if because of losses you have to lay off employees. However, this type of problems can be avoided by being aware of the risks and buying appropriate insurance.)
I'm really sick of this 'I want it for free' mentality
I'm not saying that it should be impossible for movie studios to enforce a "no camcorders" rule. I just say that if they want such a rule, they should pay for the cost of enforcement.
I seriously think that it would be a worthwhile experiment to start a "creative commons movie company" which releases all their movies under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
This choice of license would reserve all commercial rights (including commercial screening in cinemas, selling DVDs, etc.) but people would be free to use camcorders and share the results noncommercially via P2P filesharing and also create creative derivative works and distribute them noncommercially. I think that through encouraging creative derivative works, movie studios might well be able to increase the long-term revenue form their "intellectual property".
I don't think that all movie studios should be required to use this model. But those which wish to use such a strategy should be able to do so with a level playing field against their competitors. If enforcement of the "no camcorders" rule is financed by taxes, that's a subsidy which specifically helps only those movie companies which do not want to license their works in a "creative commons" way.
if the movie companies have to foot the bill then they will just pass the costs on to their customers.
Screwed no matter what you do.
As long as a large part of society wants expensively-produced films, they'll be willing to pay for the cost of producing them, one way or the other. My point is that regardless of how big the part of society is which doesn't care about expensively-produced films, they shouldn't be forced to subsidize the production of such films.
I agree. Protecting the items that I rely on for doing what I need to do is part of protecting my security. As I wrote, I do think that it's right to spend tax money on protecting the security of people. The logical conclusions of this statement include that if someone breaks into Bill gate's house, or into a safe in the headquarters of Microsoft corporation, it is right to use tax money on pursecuting such a criminal. Similarly, if someone exploits one of the many security problems of Microsoft software to break into the corporate computer network of Microsoft coporation, it is right to use tax money on persecuting such a criminal. (Persecuting privacy violations is part of protecting security of people).
There's no instrinsic right to steal the property of others whether it be tangible like grandma's life savings or the intellectual property of powerful media conglomerates.
This statement assumes that it is proper to consider the so-called "intellectual property" as a form of property. I strongly disagree with that view.
MancDiceman wrote: Using the same argument, why should taxpayers pay for the enforcement of the law regarding bank robberies instead of the banks? Or murder? Surely, if I get murdered, it's my responsibility to bequeath enough money to ensure my killer is caught?
I had written: "Taypayer money should be spend on protecting the security of people." This includes enforcing laws against murder and robbery.
Enforcing a rule against camcorders is like enforcing other kinds of NDAs. Whether or not you think that NDAs are morally acceptable, it's not right to use taxpayer money on enforcing them.
MancDiceman continued: $5 million is a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of tax revenue the entire movie industry (studios, distributors, cinemas, actors, crew, etc.) bring in annually. In short, by paying their taxes, the film industry is in fact paying for the enforcement of these laws.
If a subsidy takes the form of a tax rebate, it's still a subsidy. And, do you really think that it's right when taxpayer money is spent on camcorder rule enforcement but not on GPL enforcement just because currently the movie industry pays more taxes than the Free Software industry? Either is a subsidy by nature, and where subsidies go should be decided on a basis of where they're needed and not on a basis of who pays more taxes. (I don't want to ask for subsidies for the Free Software industry, I don't think that such subsidies are needed - just give us a level playing field without unfair advantages for proprietary software companies, and we'll do very well. However I think it's clear that subsidies for the movie industry are much less justifiable.)
So what you're saying is that we shouldn't have to pay for law enforcement to stop people from robbing your local McDonalds as well?
No, that falls under "protecting the security of people", in this case of the people working at McDonalds.
I don't object to using tay money on enforcing laws against robbery. Regardless of whether using a camcording in a cinema is legal or not, it's definately not a form of robbery. It's something else.
If the movie industry wants regulation of what people can do in music theaters,
I tend to think that they should be able to get whatever rules
they want, as long as they pay the costs of enforcement. (by contrast, the
internet "belongs to us", the world-wide user community, and no movie industry
or music industry should be allowed to interfere with how we choose to network
or computers together.)
But why on earth should taypayers have to pay for enforcement of these rules?
If preventing camcorders is movie theaters is so important to their business,
they should pay for the cost of preventing it. Anything else is a form of
subsidy of the music industry. Taypayer money should be spend on protecting
the security of people. Subsidies (in any form) are justified only if an
industry which is important for providing necessities of life to the population
is otherwise likely to suffer significant harm. In this case, there is no
justification: The movie industry does not provide any necessities, just
luxerious. Also, the movie industry would be quite capable of paying the costs
of enforcing the rules they asked for. By paying for enforcement of this rule,
Senate intends to rob the poor (taypayers) and giev to the rich (movie
industry).
I can't wait to get my hands on that DOS 3.3 source. I shall build the mightiest DOS EVER!!!!
I understand that this was meant as a joke, but this may well hit the core of this strategy. Maybe MS is intentionally trying to weaken the "GPL camp" (the kinds of projects that are potentially dangerous for Microsoft's monopolistic ambitions tend to use GNU-style licensing) by getting programmers excited about competing MS-supported projects which use the non-GPL-compatible CPL?
How long before nonvolatile memory becomes the solution to crash-prone
software rather than better programming?
If your operating system has crashed, it has crashed. You need to reboot
it. MRAM cannot change that. The point is that with MRAM you should be able to
switch off your computer and switch it on again later without reboot and
without need to save RAM contents to disk at power-down and to retore them
from disk after the system is switched on again.
Hence if anything, this technology will increase pressure on operating system vendors to produce OSes which don't crash badly enough to require a reboot.
Re:Nice idea, won't work though
on
Linux in Iraq
·
· Score: 1
Open Source would be a "real" alternative if and only if proprietery software IS expensive to obtain
Price isn't everything. For example imagine what happens if Iraq's religious leaders decide to declare MS software "unclean" (so that using it is considered the moral equivalent of touching a pig).
:-)
Importance of rebuilding the economy
on
Linux in Iraq
·
· Score: 1
nkh wrote: They are trying (with great difficulties) to rebuild their country (houses and stuff) and you want to sell installation/training/troubleshooting services?
Of course getting the fundamental human needs (most importantly: water, food, peace, housing) met is most important. I would consider rebuilding a functional economy to be very important for getting these fundamental human needs met.
Re:Obstacles
on
Linux in Iraq
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Overall, however, a proliferation of F/OSS would be a positive step forward for Iraq, where proprietary software is very expensive.
Are you sure? How much is the price of CDs with MS software (copied without permission from MS) on the streets of Bagdad?
How does this compare to F/OSS?
Is a GNU/Linux biz feasible?
on
Linux in Iraq
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
How difficult would it be to start a successful Free Software business in Iraq?
For example by selling installation/training/troubleshooting services?
If the Iraqi population is not already hooked on the MS stuff, maybe the
widespread anti-American sentiments could help gain such a company an important
advantage over competing companies which provide similar services for
(unauthroized copies of) proprietary software?
Antaeus Feldspar wrote: I'm starting to wonder whether the phrase we need to push is "no strings attached".
Hmmm... I think that phrase is too long to be useful as a replacement for "free software"/"open source", but I think it would be powerful as part of a kind of certification mark that expresses a reasonable effort towards adherence to a specific set of (yet to be precisely defined) "Digital Age Ethics" principles.
Anyone interested in discussing this further is invited to contact me via email at: nb (at) freedom (dot) biz.
Divlje Jagode wrote: Followed any of the links?...the keywords being amazing and megabits. Please, in the future, keep your gut feelings to yourself.
If something is counter-intuitive, i.e. countrary to the gut feelings of someone with reasonably good general knowledge in the relevant fields of science, it is important to question such numbers.
In this case, while the linked-to slashdot text claims (as you quote) "amazing 10 megabits per second", the statement in the actual article is significantly weaker: "The companies have confirmed in an experiment that data can be transmitted at 10 megabits per second".
Hence this "10 megabits per second" is under laboratory conditions (without the kind of electromagnetic noise that will necessarily be there if you're close to other people using a "body bus").
Also, that article talks about a single, unidirectional data transmission, not about a bus. I suspect the experiment may have been about the case of the sender and receiver being in shoes. That case is much easier to get to work with good bandwidth, because you'll actually have a closed electric circuit, with the floor functioning as an additional conductor.
If your gut feelings are different from mine, fine. That'd be a reason to dig up actual research data. But I'm going to disregard your request to keep my gut feelings to myself:-)
If RMS has to clarify this in a speech he's giving about something not directly related to the topic at hand, it's reasonable to assume that at least a few people were confused about the term.
RMS considers the freedom aspect to be so important that he will want to speak about it whenever he speaks anywhere, regardless of whether that is necessary to correct specific misconceptions or not. From this perspective, the ambiguity of the word "free" is good, because it allows to bring up the "freedom" topic easily. The ambiguity is only a problem for people who for whatever reason (perhaps they're trying to sell something to a corporation which doesn't care about matters of freedom) are interested in emphasising only the other good aspects of Open Source / Free Software.
Slashdot Mirror
Well said.
I think it would be worthwhile to create a good, non-proprietary standard which addresses the problems you pointed out. "Industry support" for this new standard would be zero at first, that might actually be good as this will make it easier to create a good standard, as commercial interests and related politics won't get in the way.
I believe that if we can create a good standard, it will evetually take off, even if Microsoft isn't interested in supporting it. Microsoft won't manage to dominate the IT landscape forever.
Googling for IP V9 reveals an april fool's joke from 1994:
RFC 1606
RFC 1607
I wonder what'll happen in the EU anti-trust sanctions. If they manage to get off the hook there, it'll be hard to convinve me that they didn't buy the European politicians.
What I was thinking of was privacy related to how I run my business. GPL'd software, and free software in general, gives me the freedom of modifying the software to reflect how I do things, without requiring me to disclose workflow-related information to competitors.
Why don't we wait with discussing this until the actual license text is available, so that we can see what the article is talking about?
Maybe, as the "the revised Shared Source terms are reminiscent of the BSD open source license" remark in the article seems to indicate, this is actually a free software / open source license. Maybe there are still some unacceptable strings attached. How are we supposed to think something good or bad about the new license just based on this article which is obviously written by someone who is not very familar with software licenses. (The article says about the GPL that it "obligates developers to make their modifications available to the public." That is incorrect. If you distribute a GPL-licensed program to someone, you have to make sure that the recipient can get the source code. You are however not required to make modifications available to the public. In practice, modifications are very often made available to the public, but this is an important distinction to keep in mind, especially when thinking about privacy issues, and also when thinking about commercial GPL licensing of software packages for the expected number of customers is small).
The GPL is a license, not a contract. Hence a GPL violation is a copyright violation, not a contract violation. Unauthorized copying and distribution of films is also a copyright violation. Apart from this new law (which makes one of them but not the other a criminal matter) GPL violations and camcorder rule violations are fundamentally the same things.
The civil court system is subsidized by tax dollars.
The civil court system is certainly important enough that such subsidies can be justified.
But even if it were not, that would be a foolish objection. Two wrongs don't make a right, so even if the GPL were not getting its fair share of tax dollars, fairness would not be increased by also denying those whose jobs depend on the movie industry the right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods.
Since when is there a "right to have their tax dollars protect their livelihoods"? Such a right would imply that every industry has a right to industry-specific legislation to protect that particular industry.
And which specific movie studios like to have bad theater-taped copies floating around giving their films a bad name?
This is an issue that can be solved easily and inexpensively: movie studios which are concerned about this could simply distribute high-quality versions on their films via P2P filesharing.
How do you justify movie industry tax money being spent on enforcing a "no camcorders" rule, but tax money from free software businesses not being spent on GPL enforcement?
How do you justify the unfair advantage that this kind of law gives movie studios that want to prevent leaks over competing movie studies which want to take a more relaxed attitude?
The injustice is not in the no-camcorders rule, but in using tax money for enforcing it. See my other comments for detailed arguments.
You're right. This law in itself isn't a big problem - at least it isn't for me (there are many better ways for spending my time than watching illegally-copied films). But I consider it a big problem that apparantly politicians think that this type of law is right and just.
Here the goal of the movie companies is to prevent copies of the film from showing up on P2P filesharing before they start selling DVDs of the film (at that stage it's impossible to prevent). Hence a single camcorder rule violation might cause millions of people to watch an illegal copy of the film in the convenience of their own homes instead of going out to the movie theater.
I do think that it's justified to impose stiff penalties for transgressions that cause huge economic damages. However I think that all the costs related to sending transgressors to jail (at least those who don't have enough money to fully recompensate the movie studios for their lost profits) should be borne by those companies which have chosen a business model that requires the use of such extreme enforcement measures.
It's copyright infringement (and if there's a rule against camcorders in cinemas, then it's also a form of NDA violation), but it's not theft.
The difference is that if you steal something from me, I don't have it anymore. If you infringe my copyright, I still have my creative work, but I'm likely to make less money from it.
If you steal my car, then tomorrow I can't use it to go out with my famaily. The time that I could have spent in a nice place with my family will never come back, hence it is possible that I may suffer harm of a kind which cannot be put right with money. The point here is that even if I had insurance against car theft which pays me the exact value of the car that was stolen from me, I'll still be very annoyed about the car theft, because I have suffered a kind of harm that cannot be put right with money.
Copyright infringement and NDA violations on the other hand result in damages which consist only in lost profits. (Of course in principle, lost profits can also result in damages of the kind that cannot be put right with money, for example if because of losses you have to lay off employees. However, this type of problems can be avoided by being aware of the risks and buying appropriate insurance.)
I'm really sick of this 'I want it for free' mentality
I'm not saying that it should be impossible for movie studios to enforce a "no camcorders" rule. I just say that if they want such a rule, they should pay for the cost of enforcement.
I seriously think that it would be a worthwhile experiment to start a "creative commons movie company" which releases all their movies under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
This choice of license would reserve all commercial rights (including commercial screening in cinemas, selling DVDs, etc.) but people would be free to use camcorders and share the results noncommercially via P2P filesharing and also create creative derivative works and distribute them noncommercially. I think that through encouraging creative derivative works, movie studios might well be able to increase the long-term revenue form their "intellectual property".
I don't think that all movie studios should be required to use this model. But those which wish to use such a strategy should be able to do so with a level playing field against their competitors. If enforcement of the "no camcorders" rule is financed by taxes, that's a subsidy which specifically helps only those movie companies which do not want to license their works in a "creative commons" way.
Screwed no matter what you do.
As long as a large part of society wants expensively-produced films, they'll be willing to pay for the cost of producing them, one way or the other. My point is that regardless of how big the part of society is which doesn't care about expensively-produced films, they shouldn't be forced to subsidize the production of such films.
I agree. Protecting the items that I rely on for doing what I need to do is part of protecting my security. As I wrote, I do think that it's right to spend tax money on protecting the security of people. The logical conclusions of this statement include that if someone breaks into Bill gate's house, or into a safe in the headquarters of Microsoft corporation, it is right to use tax money on pursecuting such a criminal. Similarly, if someone exploits one of the many security problems of Microsoft software to break into the corporate computer network of Microsoft coporation, it is right to use tax money on persecuting such a criminal. (Persecuting privacy violations is part of protecting security of people).
There's no instrinsic right to steal the property of others whether it be tangible like grandma's life savings or the intellectual property of powerful media conglomerates.
This statement assumes that it is proper to consider the so-called "intellectual property" as a form of property. I strongly disagree with that view.
I had written: "Taypayer money should be spend on protecting the security of people." This includes enforcing laws against murder and robbery.
Enforcing a rule against camcorders is like enforcing other kinds of NDAs. Whether or not you think that NDAs are morally acceptable, it's not right to use taxpayer money on enforcing them.
MancDiceman continued: $5 million is a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of tax revenue the entire movie industry (studios, distributors, cinemas, actors, crew, etc.) bring in annually. In short, by paying their taxes, the film industry is in fact paying for the enforcement of these laws.
If a subsidy takes the form of a tax rebate, it's still a subsidy. And, do you really think that it's right when taxpayer money is spent on camcorder rule enforcement but not on GPL enforcement just because currently the movie industry pays more taxes than the Free Software industry? Either is a subsidy by nature, and where subsidies go should be decided on a basis of where they're needed and not on a basis of who pays more taxes. (I don't want to ask for subsidies for the Free Software industry, I don't think that such subsidies are needed - just give us a level playing field without unfair advantages for proprietary software companies, and we'll do very well. However I think it's clear that subsidies for the movie industry are much less justifiable.)
No, that falls under "protecting the security of people", in this case of the people working at McDonalds.
I don't object to using tay money on enforcing laws against robbery. Regardless of whether using a camcording in a cinema is legal or not, it's definately not a form of robbery. It's something else.
But why on earth should taypayers have to pay for enforcement of these rules?
If preventing camcorders is movie theaters is so important to their business, they should pay for the cost of preventing it. Anything else is a form of subsidy of the music industry. Taypayer money should be spend on protecting the security of people. Subsidies (in any form) are justified only if an industry which is important for providing necessities of life to the population is otherwise likely to suffer significant harm. In this case, there is no justification: The movie industry does not provide any necessities, just luxerious. Also, the movie industry would be quite capable of paying the costs of enforcing the rules they asked for. By paying for enforcement of this rule, Senate intends to rob the poor (taypayers) and giev to the rich (movie industry).
I understand that this was meant as a joke, but this may well hit the core of this strategy. Maybe MS is intentionally trying to weaken the "GPL camp" (the kinds of projects that are potentially dangerous for Microsoft's monopolistic ambitions tend to use GNU-style licensing) by getting programmers excited about competing MS-supported projects which use the non-GPL-compatible CPL?
If your operating system has crashed, it has crashed. You need to reboot it. MRAM cannot change that. The point is that with MRAM you should be able to switch off your computer and switch it on again later without reboot and without need to save RAM contents to disk at power-down and to retore them from disk after the system is switched on again.
Hence if anything, this technology will increase pressure on operating system vendors to produce OSes which don't crash badly enough to require a reboot.
Price isn't everything. For example imagine what happens if Iraq's religious leaders decide to declare MS software "unclean" (so that using it is considered the moral equivalent of touching a pig).
Of course getting the fundamental human needs (most importantly: water, food, peace, housing) met is most important. I would consider rebuilding a functional economy to be very important for getting these fundamental human needs met.
Are you sure? How much is the price of CDs with MS software (copied without permission from MS) on the streets of Bagdad?
How does this compare to F/OSS?
If the Iraqi population is not already hooked on the MS stuff, maybe the widespread anti-American sentiments could help gain such a company an important advantage over competing companies which provide similar services for (unauthroized copies of) proprietary software?
Hmmm... I think that phrase is too long to be useful as a replacement for "free software"/"open source", but I think it would be powerful as part of a kind of certification mark that expresses a reasonable effort towards adherence to a specific set of (yet to be precisely defined) "Digital Age Ethics" principles.
Anyone interested in discussing this further is invited to contact me via email at: nb (at) freedom (dot) biz.
If something is counter-intuitive, i.e. countrary to the gut feelings of someone with reasonably good general knowledge in the relevant fields of science, it is important to question such numbers.
In this case, while the linked-to slashdot text claims (as you quote) "amazing 10 megabits per second", the statement in the actual article is significantly weaker: "The companies have confirmed in an experiment that data can be transmitted at 10 megabits per second".
Hence this "10 megabits per second" is under laboratory conditions (without the kind of electromagnetic noise that will necessarily be there if you're close to other people using a "body bus").
Also, that article talks about a single, unidirectional data transmission, not about a bus. I suspect the experiment may have been about the case of the sender and receiver being in shoes. That case is much easier to get to work with good bandwidth, because you'll actually have a closed electric circuit, with the floor functioning as an additional conductor.
If your gut feelings are different from mine, fine. That'd be a reason to dig up actual research data. But I'm going to disregard your request to keep my gut feelings to myself :-)
RMS considers the freedom aspect to be so important that he will want to speak about it whenever he speaks anywhere, regardless of whether that is necessary to correct specific misconceptions or not. From this perspective, the ambiguity of the word "free" is good, because it allows to bring up the "freedom" topic easily. The ambiguity is only a problem for people who for whatever reason (perhaps they're trying to sell something to a corporation which doesn't care about matters of freedom) are interested in emphasising only the other good aspects of Open Source / Free Software.