See also: last week's Letters page.

Letters to the editor

From:	 chris.m.moore@amsjv.com
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: A better name for CBDTPA
Date:	 Thu, 04 Apr 2002 14:13:08 +0100

Hi,

Great interview with RMS.  As to discussing the CBDTPA bill: why not
call it the CoBbleD TressPAss bill since it's poorly thought out and
invasive.  :-)

Cheers,
 
Chris M. Moore
Software engineer, UK

From:	 Richard Kay <rich@copsewood.net>
To:	 jono@fsf.org
Subject: US anti-communications act
Date:	 Fri, 5 Apr 2002 12:53:18 +0100
Cc:	 letters@lwn.net

Seems you guys in the US have a similar problem
we had in the UK with what we renamed "The Poll Tax", which
the government of the day (Margaret Thatcher) named
"The Community Charge" in a particularly Orwellian bit
of double-speak. This particular malformed legislation
cost Maggie her job. No-one now refers to the oppressive
law by her name for it - everyone calls it "The Poll Tax".

Following RMS's interview it seems you need to have a
competition for the best rename of the CBDTPA. How
about:

The Anti-Communications Statute (TACS) 

Programming Prevention Act

Programmer Unconditional Suppression Statute (PUSS).

I'm sure someone can come up with something better. 

From:	 "Chris Brand" <Chris_Brand@spectrumsignal.com>
To:	 <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: The FTAA
Date:	 Thu, 4 Apr 2002 16:59:28 -0800

In your interview with him, Mr Stallman said
>The USA is not the only battleground: the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA)
>may extend DMCA-style anti-circumvention provisions from the southern tip of Chile to 
>the northern territories of Canada--that is what the US demands. If you live in the Americas,
>please work to oppose the FTAA, particularly this April when it is debated again. The
>immediate battle here is that the USA is pushing to accelerate adoption by 2003 when the 
>current slate is for 2005. Let's at least try to keep the schedule for 2005 so we have more 
>time to fight. 

I'd like to second this motion. Please help oppose the extension of the DMCA into the rest of
the Americas. Visit  http://www.ftaa-alca.org/. Read the invitation to participate.
Note that there are very strict requirements that comments have to adhere to and that
you only have until the end of this month to submit them. Then send them comments, even
if it's only a few lines. Please.

Chris Brand 

(Not speaking on behalf of my employer)

From:	 David Walker <alternativept@yahoo.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: 
Date:	 Sat, 6 Apr 2002 11:12:05 -0800 (PST)

Mr. Stallman writes in your interview: "I would not ban high salaries, but
I think they should have a high tax bracket. As for making software
proprietary, I really don't care whether it is legal as long as in practice
it is rare enough to have no significant impact on society."

He also writes: "Proprietary software is antisocial, so developing it is
wrong."

It would appear from these quotes that Mr. Stallman does not think people
should be allowed to make money from their own labor, but should "donate"
it to the common good or have it taken from them.

As a health professional (physical therapist), I am familiar with this
thinking.  There are many who contend that health care should be a "human
right", available to all at no cost.  Nice idea until you get to the part
where I must work for free.  Health care is a service, not a right.
Otherwise, who will pay for my lunch?

In the world of computing, Mr. Stallman says that a programmer who goes to
school and thinks up a unique, marketable hack must give it away.
He/she/they should not be allowed to benefit from their hours of
butt-numbing labor.  If they manage to make a ton of money in spite of the
forces arrayed against them, then this money shall be taken away by
government.

How is this in any way reasonable?  In a free society if a guy writes a
program, it is his.  He can sell it or give it away as the spirit moves
him.  Both choices are reasonable and morally correct.

Gnu is a gift that Mr. Stallman and friends have -freely- chosen to give.
Nobody told them they had to, they just gave it.  Linux and Gnu should be
viewed in this light, and valued accordingly.  Such gifts are precious.

However for Mr. Stallman to suggest that it is immoral to make or use
proprietary software is not supportable.  Patents, copywrites and trade
secret protections are a cornerstone of modern Western civilization.  They
were invented and developed over centuries because they were desperately
needed.

The founders of the United States felt the issue was sufficiently important
to put it in the Constitution.  That certain unscrupulous companies ("Who's
the leader of the club...?") and politicians have abused the law does not
invalidate the principle on which it is based.

I think Mr. Stallman needs to look into the philosophical underpinnings of
his belief system.  Private property is not immoral in a free society.

In fact, there is no freedom without private property.  Freedom starts with
the absolute ownership of your own body and your own labor.  If your labor
is not yours, you can't give it away.

David Walker, Ancaster Ont. Canada

From:	 Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com>
To:	 letters@lwn.net
Subject: "intellectual property"
Date:	 Fri, 5 Apr 2002 14:20:54 -0800

RMS claims that he doesn't like the term "intellectual property"
because it is biased.  I've given it much thought and came to the
conclusion that the term "intellectual property" can reasonably only
mean one thing: "trade secrets"...  and the laws in that area are
quite reasonable, I believe.

-- 
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA  93556-1412
Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com>      Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO                             Fax: (760) 499-9152
My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084  4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B

From:	 Leon Brooks <whtwo@leon.brooks.fdns.net>
To:	 eCommunity@unisys.com
Subject: Must The Way Out be dodgy from end to end?
Date:	 Fri, 5 Apr 2002 10:47:38 +0800
Cc:	 Thomas.Freeman@unisys.com, Kevin.McHugh@unisys.com

Is this really The Way Out?

OK, so the embarrassment of hosting an anti-Unix site on a Unix box has 
passed, and the website is actually up instead of showing Error403s and blank 
pages... but still, something's not right. In fact, practically everything's 
not right.

The main page actually seems to work in most browsers, but the image is 
crazy... you're supposed to be representing someone escaping from a dark maze 
to a better place, but the window into the maze has light shining OUT from 
the maze. Is this a Freudian slip? A glance at http://www.wehavethewayin.com/ 
- the opposition - shows a much more relevant set of images.

So next, I go to join the ecommunity, and am served a page packed to the 
eyebrows in fragile JavaScript. Needless to say, this JavaScript fails to 
construct a useable registration form, so I cannot register. Why are you 
using JavaScript so heavily on a site supposedly inspiring confidence in your 
viewers, so they will transition to UniSys and Microsoft?

But this is still only the beginning of troubles.

During the page load, I get a nice dialog box explaining that DoubleClick 
have offered an expired certificate, and asking if I should accept it. I 
decline. This does not look competent. Why are you outsourcing advertising, 
especially from a provider which many people block, on a site which has 
advertising as its primary purpose?

Next, I see that the underlying technology is JSP, a technology designed and 
fathered by Sun - Unix specialists - and over which much controversy hangs 
with regard to Microsoft's ability to provide compliant Java support. Why are 
you again using a technology which `belongs' to the opposition and not one 
which `belongs' to your allies? Why are you demonstrating with a product over 
which standards-compliance questionmarks hang?

The main WHTWO page has no Document Type Definition (DTD) in it, which is a 
violation of the international HTML standards.

The page also uses a Windows-only character set, which is going to make it 
display poorly for those very Unix users you're targetting, not to mention 
Macintosh and other browsers. The character set in question (windows-1252) 
places printable characters (notably `smart quotes') in a UniCode control 
character zone, so not only is it non-standard, it actively conflicts with an 
important international standard, and ironically one which Microsoft are 
active in promoting the use of.

WHTWO fails all of the HTML validations (http://www.validator.w3.org/) no 
matter what class of HTML I tell the validator to try. This is a bit of a 
showstopper because you're targetting an audience for whom standards are 
important. The Ecommunity entry page is even worse, with element nesting 
errors and the like throughout.

A quick portscan of the webserver shows more ports open than necessary (ie 
it's not as secure as it should be) including a port normally associated with 
the Open Source database MySQL. Even if you're not using MySQL, this doesn't 
look good at all.

If these sites are supposed to be showcasing the benefits of riding with 
UniSys and Microsoft, for me at least they've achieved the precise opposite.

If UniSys and Microsoft were carrying out an enterprise-wide implementation 
for me and fumbled it this badly, repeatedly, I'd just about die of shame.

Cheers; Leon

From:	 jimd@starshine.org (Jim Dennis)
To:	 letters@lwn.net, editors@linuxtoday.com
Subject: Intellectual Property in the New Millennium: A Tempestuous Sea of Change
Date:	 Fri,  5 Apr 2002 13:34:06 -0800 (PST)

  Intellectual Property in the New Millennium: 
  A Tempestuous Sea of Change
	copyright: James T. Dennis <jimd@starshine.org> 2002





 [License to read, publish, translate and discuss granted without fee or
 royalty subject to the following license:

	You must absolutely agree with everything I say! (*) ]





 Regarding the recent Slashdot article, I have a somewhat rambling rant 
 that might be thought provoking:

> Microsoft Tech Specs Prohibit GPL Implementations
>
> Posted by michael on Friday April 05, @10:42AM
> from the difference-between-trust-and-anti-trust dept.
> abartlet writes "As described in this Advogato entry, MS is trying to pull a
> swifty with their latest 'release' of their CIFS (the networked filesystem
> Samba implements) Technical Reference. The licence specifically prohibits
> any GPLed or (or LGPLed) program from implementing it, defining it as an
> 'IPR Impairing Licence'! Fortunately the CIFS community is about to release 
> its own Technical Reference based on earlier MS documents and long 
> experience in attempting to interoperate with the MS product." Microsoft's 
> claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can
> take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good 
> (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others 
> from interoperating with their software. 

 This is just a symptom of a much larger problem.  Microsoft is only 
 one example of this increasingly invasive and oppressive trend by 
 large corporations to re-define laws and customs that relate to 
 fair use.  They, in essence, are trying to say that a publication 
 (NOT SOFTWARE BUT TEXTUAL INFORMATION, AS IT MIGHT BE PRINTED) is
 subject to LICENSING rather than traditional copyright law.

 Let's give an example:  If I wrote a novel, hypothetically a mystery,
 I could not publish it under a "license" that required people to pay
 me royalties for any of the "ideas" that the might implement in 
 committing or investigating real crimes.  Indeed, I can't (under our
 customs or traditional laws) attempt to limit the right of other 
 people to write other novels (even if they happen to be mysteries, 
 set in similar time periods and/or mileus, even if they have similar
 characters and gimmicks, even if they actually involve the "same" 
 crime -- such as the classic "locked room" murder).

 If course I might have a claim if an author used the same characters
 (name and description), and/or the same titles or author's psuedonyms
 (or names, titles, or author psuedonyms that were sufficiently similar 
 as would be likely to cause confusion --- a point where copyright starts
 to interface with trademark laws and traditions).

 I recall that there was actually a lawsuit recently (within the last
 year or two) where a parody of "Gone with the Wind" was at issue.  Such
 a lawsuit would, historically, have been unthinkable (parody is specifically
 protected in copyright and trademark laws as a right of free speech).

 Although IANAL (I am NOT a lawyer) it seems that most of these "licenses" 
 are unenforceable and without legal foundation.  However, there is 
 absolutely NO doubt that they are having chilling effect on public
 discourse.  Countless individuals are giving up rights to their 
 Internet domain names, their product names, and being bullied into 
 publishing retractions etc for activities that are almost certainly 
 legally "protected" by Bill of Rights (in the U.S.) or similar legal
 principles.  As our legal system currently works there is a wide disparity
 between our hypothetical rights and the practical ability of individuals
 or small businesses to defend themselves in a court of law.  Our tort
 and litigation environment is currently the principal injustice of
 our civilization.

 Thus, with the dawn of a new millennium we see the initial skirmishes 
 between "content owners" and individual fair use rights.  Ultimately 
 the "content owners" are striving to define concepts of patent, copyright,
 trademark, trade secret, and all other forms of "intellectual property"
 etc, in the broadest possible way -- essentially to control our very 
 thoughts.  (If Disney could, I've no doubt that they charge for every
 time a kid *dreamed* of a mouse!)

 Microsoft is most visible to members of the slashdot, open source, 
 free software, Linux and related communities.  However we should realize
 that they are overshadowed by organizations that epitomize abuse of 
 our legal and political systems to protect their monopolies on "content."
 
 Yes, I'm referring to the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, the MPAA etc. We also must
 keep in mind that the "media" (the major source for all of the "news"
 in the western "first" world) is basically owned by, and an extension of,
 the "entertainment" industry (A.K.A. the "content OWNERS").  This probably
 comes as no surprise to the many geeks who now rely on slashdot and 
 other online sources far more than CNN for their news.  However, it is
 easy to forget that most of the rest of the industrialized world gets
 virtually all of their second hand information about the state of the 
 world filtered through these "content owners."

 Of course we shouldn't be blind to history.  This struggle is not 
 unprecedented.  There are specific elements of U.S. copyright law 
 dating back to it's inception in the 1700's from what I've heard) that
 exempt "fonts" and "typefaces" from being copyrightable.  (It has been
 argued that computer fonts, such as Postscript and TrueType, are actually
 "programs" rather than "typefaces" in a strict interpretation --- though
 I think a reasonable view would hold that the INTENT of the exemption 
 would clearly extend it to them regardless of technical details about the
 "new paper" and "new fangled press" on which they are implemented).  
 Apparently there were efforts dating back almost to Gutenberg to "license"
 fonts and limit what could be published with them.  I've heard anecdotes
 that suggest that Thomas Edison tried to extend the notions of copyright
 (and patents) as it applied to his phonographic tubes and (later) discs.
 (Indeed the distinction between "playing" recorded music (for personal
 use) and "performing" it (for the public) was introduced at that time
 --- with vastly different legal implications between them.

 In a broader socio-historical view I suspect that this is an inevitable
 consequence of civilization and technical progress.  An industrial 
 epoch will naturally change the relative values of goods vs. services
 and of tangibles vs. "intellectual property."  Eventually any consumer
 good can be manufactured by just about anybody.  Even without Trekkie
 "replicators" the overall trend is that consumer items become commodities
 --- and eventually manufacturing and distribution costs become the only
 relevant objective factor in choosing among manufacturers of any given
 commodity.  Thus the manufacturers gain a vested interest in promoting
 subjective factors ("branding") in order to gain or retain market share
 and/or to command any sort of premium or margin on their goods.  While
 these pressures push down the prices (towards cost) significant factions
 business seek new markets -- and the issues that relate to intangibles
 become more important.  Historically, industries will attempt to exert
 political and legal pressures to protect it's business.  Every existing
 company would like to get the "franchise" that creates artificial 
 barriers to entry for competition.

 I just hope that a large enough proportion of our population can be 
 educated enough to speak out and apply the political pressure that 
 will be necessary for all of us to retain any semblance of our 
 "inalienable" rights.

 All to often I hear fallacious references to rights being "granted"
 by the "Bill of Rights."  However it's important to realize that the
 wording of that document has NOTHING to do with granting liberties.
 It was an effort to *recognize* that our rights are inherent, 
 "self-evident" and "inalienable" (would that these were true in any
 pragmatic sense).  It may sound like a nitpick, but there is a deep
 philosophical difference.  No one, and no entity has the right to 
 grant or deny our rights.  

 Our government was *supposed* to be founded on the belief that our 
 rights were inherent, SELF-EVIDENT and INALIENABLE.  Clearly our 
 current and recent legislators don't care to recognize this. (Whether
 they understand it is irrelevant).  Each and every congressperson 
 and senator that voted for the CDA (common decency act) and the DMCA,
 and that is currently sponsoring, authoring or supporting the SSSCA
 (or CBT-gobblegook to which it got renamed) is in violation of their
 oath (to uphold the Constitution) and of the public trust.

 Of course that is of no practical consequence.  In system politicians
 are primarily elected based on campaign financing and there are 
 no practical choices in most elections (usually the differences between
 a Democrat and a Republican in any given election are largely 
 superficial --- when it comes to broad and long term fiscal policies).
 Our political system is systemically corrupt. [There are historical
 precendent for this, too.  Most fallen civilization in history have
 succumbed to their own political corruption and decay].

 I realize I've been speaking about these issues from a vague 
 perspective -- referring to global issues (at least to "industrialized
 first-world issues) and to U.S. legal and political problems as though
 the U.S. was the only law that mattered in the world.  It isn't my
 intent to be "americo-centric" and I'm sure that similar problems are
 evident in every other political sphere.  However, I don't have solutions,
 not even suggestions!  

 In closing I would like to say one other thing specifically about 
 situation in the U.S.

 The Constitution of the United States of America is an imperfect document,
 but IT'S A DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN WHAT WE'RE USING NOW!  


* (RE: This document's License: Just kidding!)