See also: last week's Letters page.

Letters to the editor

From:	 Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: Software Patents: France Accuses EC of Misleading e.Europe
Date:	 07 Mar 2002 16:12:48 +0100

A government publically opposes software patents, and you write only 2
lines in the commerce section of LWN ? I was hoping this would have
generated a bit more comment from your part. Letting the software
patents pass or not in the EC *is* important.

Ok, this government is French, and you're a Colorado-based company, so
it's not that intersting for you.
Moreover in France there'll be soon presidential elections, which make
popular declarations more frequent. But hey, this means a governing body
is acknowledging that life would be better without these patents ?

I thought this deserved a bit more attention than the fact that
StarOffice didn't change its status.

Cheers,
	Xav

PS: Frenchies are often angry at something. I don't know if it's genetic
or constitutionnal. Long live LWN !

From:	 ketil@ii.uib.no (Ketil Z. Malde)
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: digital rights and wrongs management
Date:	 07 Mar 2002 09:24:32 +0100


Hi,

While it is of course important for legislators to look after
businesses and business models that constitute the pillars of their
society, it should also be a priority to look after the citizens.

As a parent, I perceive cars and traffic is a threat to the safety of
my children as much as unrestricted software is a threat to
copyrights.  And, unless legislators openly will insist that the
profits of media businesses are more important than the lives of
children, I propose that all cars and other vehicles are fitted with
speed regulators that make it impossible to break speed limits.  

An organisation, say the Parents' Auto Control Management AssociatioN,
will license auto manufacturers and maintenance shops, and of course
perform unannounced raids to ensure that they comply with the
licensing. 

In order to avoid people tampering with speed control devices,
cars should be sealed, and maintenance should only be performed by
PACMAN-approved shops. Since we have 25 year imprisonment as
punishment for writing software that /can/ be used for copyright
infringement, I suggest at least fifty years is appropriate for
illegal vehicle maintenance, that is, opening the hood by anybody
without a license.

Sounds fun, doesn't it?

-kzm
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

From:	 David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: SSSCA vs freedom
Date:	 Thu, 07 Mar 2002 12:29:48 -0800

In your March 7 issue you wrote:

> The problem is that free software is seen by many of these
> people as a sort of circumvention device. Systems with freely
> available source can not be relied upon to enforce other
> peoples' claimed digital rights. 

As the saying goes, "Your right to swing your fist ends
where my face begins."  But the SSSCA proponents
don't want to accept that type of limitation.  They don't
believe that copyright is a similar balance between
"competing" interests.  Or that copyright was created
with an agreement to enlarge the public domain when
the copyright expires -- in the near term. (*)

As more of society produces information (sometimes,
but not always, by synthesizing it from many sources),
rather than being pure consumers of pap from ever-larger
media conglomerates, both government and media have
started to act on a perceived threat to their plutocracy.
Imagine if a Free people were ever to notice the
level of corporate and governmental autocracy that's
afflicting them ... and decided they didn't like it?

Oh no -- there might be democratic change.  That's
a clear threat to this plutocratic society, and must
be prevented.  Our American Way is threatened!!
(Ignore that other American Way behind the curtain.)

- Dave

(*) Copyright originally expired when people who helped
    make the work valuable, but did not get copyright,
    might be alive to create "derivative works".  Today
    there are even more of those people ... music fans
    are what make bands popular (but notice the session
    artists never get copyright), employees are what
    enable corporate production, and so on.

From:	 "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: AOL and/for Linux
Date:	 Tue, 12 Mar 2002 10:51:34 -0500
Cc:	 robin@roblimo.com

In a NewsForge piece linked from Tuesday's daily section, an AOL
employee is quoted thus on the topic of an AOL client ever appearing
for Linux:

 As far as an AOL client for Linux, one Linux-using AOL employee says,
 "How many Linux people do you know personally who would sign up for AOL
 if we had a Linux client? I don't know a single one, myself. I have an
 account with another ISP I use at home with my Linux box, and probably
 wouldn't use AOL from home even if I could."

While I could make a snotty comment about how this illustrates how AOL
employees miss the point almost as often as Microsoft employees do,
it will be more productive (thought less satisfying :-) for me to
*make* the point, which is that it's not the *"Linux people"* that
we're after there, silly.

We're trying to make it possible for some of those vaunted 30 million
subs to *finish* renouncing Microsoft, and move *to* Linux instead --
assuming one of the current crop of "Linux for d*mmies" distros makes
the grade -- because, obviously, viral as it is, AOL will be the reason
that a lot of those people *don't* switch; it's not worth running Wine
just to get AOL, no matter how good OpenOffice is...

Cheers,
-- jr 'anywhere he wants' a
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra@baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff     Baylink                             RFC 2100
The Suncoast Freenet         The Things I Think
Tampa Bay, Florida        http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

   "If you don't have a dream; how're you gonna have a dream come true?"
     -- Captain Sensible, The Damned (from South Pacific's "Happy Talk")

From:	 Bo Grimes <vgrimes@rr.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: Elcomsoft
Date:	 Tue, 12 Mar 2002 17:16:10 -0500

> Burton said that the Internet is an international, "ambient" realm,
> meaning that it is "everywhere and nowhere" and that it "transcends the
> idea of being only physical." Therefore, he said, conduct that occurs on
> the Internet is "extraterritorial" of U.S. laws, specifically the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that Elcomsoft is charged
> with violating.  Wouldn't it be nice if this view were upheld by the
> court?

While I am a big supporter of open source software and freedom of speech,
there's no reason to be mesmerized by vacuous arguments.

One can not legally make harassing phone calls or send anthrax in the mail,
so why should one be able to send harassing emails or computer viruses? Cracking
a password to get a credit card number is no different than picking a pocket
to get it. If you break cyberspace and space-time down small enough, eventually
they consist of the same particles.

Communication or acts through one media that uses electrons (Internet) is
no different than others that also use electrons (phone) or waves (voice).
The question of legality shouldn't rest upon which means are used to accomplish
the act but the act itself.

If it's simply a matter of speech, fine, but why should all "conduct" be
above the law simply because the cables and lines used (the same ones used
to transmit cable TV and phone calls) run through many different countries?

From:	 Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.fdns.net>
To:	 Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com>
Subject: Choice comments
Date:	 Thu, 7 Mar 2002 21:41:40 +0800
Cc:	 Linux Weekly News <letters@lwn.net>

Eric Smith wonders (http://lwn.net/2002/0307/letters.php3):
> No one is forcing [Microsoft] to use GPL'd software.  It's simply
> another choice.  Of course, Microsoft doesn't want people to have
> choices, but isn't it strange that they complain that choices are
> available to them?

Meanwhile, Craig Mundie, representative of a convicted monopoly 
(http://www.sun.com/executives/perspectives/bad.html), software pirate 
(http://www.ensignuk.com/news/industry_news/110105.htm) and confessed outlaw 
(http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/03/05/microsoft.states.ap/) 
pontificates (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-847303.html):
> Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what
> we had already created, there was this notion that the world
> should be offered an alternative

Three important things come from this: ONE - CHOICES

After Mundie's statement, there's really not much left to debate in terms of 
whether Microsoft really wants choice. There _is_ scope for discussing the 
kind of choice. We could beat around in the bush a fair bit, weighing up 
alternatives, but I'll cut straight to the chase:

Microsoft only wants choices it can control, and it can't control the GPL.

Now, the ``form a federation with Microsoft'' part... sure, let the sheep 
form a federation with the wolf, but it'll be on the wolf's terms, and 
involve a constant supply of mint sauce. We've seen words like those before 
in many compensation cases. It's all about control.

TWO - PAST AND FUTURE

The history of William Henry ``Trey'' Gates III shows that what that boy is 
all about, has been all about since at least his teens - and so what his 
company is all about - is control. And that's a major Achilles' heel, because 
anyone so fixated on something can be controlled themselves.

Bill's been extremely fortunate that the only real challenge to that control 
has been benevolent and decentralised Free Software. If a powerful competitor 
like Larry ``hair's-breadth from being richest'' Ellison could push Bill's 
buttons so hard, a few years of corporate Judo would see Microsoft totalled.

Microsoft seems to be dying of a thousand mostly self-inflicted cuts anyway. 
Call it karma, Divine judgement, whatever, their constant breaking of the 
Golden Rule is coming back to bite them ever harder - enough to hurt.

THREE - WHAT'S MY PART?

A bigger question than the fate of Bill's flagship is: do you want to base 
your business around a company which continues to lie to and mislead friends, 
partners, enemies, courts, employees and stockholders freely and with 
apparent indifference? Are you happy with the well-dressed, confident rep 
from MCS, or is it time to look at history to see what Microsoft's real place 
for you is? Does your future lie with a lone potential corporate Titanic, 
or with a rich selection of standard, interoperable components?

CONCLUSION

The GPL is about control, too. Corporate control is doled out from on high, 
after being sucked to to the center, like a black hole. The Free Software 
milieu is less regular, ranging from dictator to ogliarchy to solo to chaos, 
and the structures frequently change. Control is dispersed.

The pivotal control issue is that the GPL makes and _keeps_ available not 
only a large number of applications and comprehensive development tool sets, 
but a large number of working examples and jumping-off points. Where a viable 
Free and standard solution exists in a market, the playing field is more 
level, it is much more difficult to justify an overpriced, overcontrolled 
proprietary solution. Witness the path of SCO and in lesser degree Sun.

This is precisely what Microsoft don't want. They are a battleship fighting 
in an age of air supremacy, and can't push a button and magic themselves into 
a carrier. They've seen cruisers sunk and sinking and they're panicking.

Cheers; Leon