Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
> >
> > Emlyn O'Regan wrote:
> > >
> > > http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2573456,00.html
> > >
> > > I think this is old news, but I never saw it here. Linus Torvalds amongst
> > > others takes an anti-Napster position, and supports Metallica's lawsuit.
> > >
> >
> > I actually think that what Larry Wall says is even better, though Linus of
> > course has more chic amongst the more ignorant slackerati:
> >
> > "Larry Wall, developer of the Perl language, has a similar perspective. "Open
> > source should be about giving away things voluntarily," he says. "When you force
> > someone to give you something, it's no longer giving, it's stealing. Persons of
> > leisurely moral growth often confuse giving with taking." "
>
> Fine. But this doesn't seem to address the central questions about what
> intellectual property is or is not, whether the curren understanding
> serves or disservices us and what can be done about it.
>
> We are playing around the periphery of the true issues largely.
> Positions are being declared to shift the discussion for different
> purposes. The central questions are largely ignored.
What is being ignored? The fact is that the people who create stuff need to
live. The inscentive of wealth is ONE tool that is useful to to encourage
creativeness. Historical analysis suggests that to date, it seems to be one of
the most effective tools to do so. So the better question is: Do we need the
current or higher levels of creativity, or can we survive in societies of lesser
creativity before we engulf the planet? I say we need as high a level of
creativity as possible. It is understood, that at some point, there are only so
many boats and cars you can park in your garage to make you happy, however a
creative person can ALWAYS, I think, find something new and better to do with
more wealth.
Napsteristas, et al, are nothing but cargo cult vandals, stealing pretty baubles
from their betters.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:38:25 MDT