LinuxPlanet: Stallman/Stanco: A Dialogue on Copyright Law and Free/Open Source Software (Part 4)

[ Thanks to KevinReichard for this link. ]

"This is the fourth day of an email dialogue with Richard Stallman on the philosophy of copyright that will be published over nine days on LinuxPlanet. This dialogue arose from comments that RMS was kind enough to give me on a two-part article on software licensing that appeared on LinuxProgramming recently."

"[Stallman]:

>Our enemies want to pretend that US legal tradition is on their side.
>Our enemies want people to believe that their view was enshrined in
>the Constitution and has never been challenged except by a few
>radicals. This is not true--it is a snow-job."

"[Stanco]:

You want us to have too many enemies. Let's choose our enemies wisely. What's the point of letting people paint us as anti-property, anti-establishment, anti-lawyer? This will not help our cause, if our cause is free software. If the cause is something else, you should let me know. ... Remember Shakespeare's admonition that people sometimes mar what they have in trying to achieve still more. Is GPL not enough of a legacy? I think it will put the world on a road that goes where you want it to get to, in due time, but don't try to overleap the entire path to get to the end all at once. Let the world catch up and let others take their place on that road, too."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• LinuxPlanet: Stallman/Stanco: A Dialogue on Copyright Law and Free/Open Source Software (Part 3)(Jul 17, 2000)
• LinuxPlanet: Stallman/Stanco: A Dialogue on Copyright Law and Free/OpenSource Software (Part 2)(Jul 14, 2000)
• LinuxPlanet: Stallman/Stanco: A Dialogue on Copyright Law and Free/Open Source Software (Part 1)(Jul 13, 2000)
• LinuxProgramming: Looking at the General Public License and Open-Source Licenses(Jul 10, 2000)
• Linux Programming: Software Licenses and Traditional Copyright Law(Jul 07, 2000)