What I Learned from the Libertarians Aug 23, 2007, 20 :30 UTC (7 Talkback[s]) (6667 reads) (Other stories by Michael Tiemann)
"I myself became a convert to this libertarian perspective when the fruits of my labor, which I sold for a wage, were placed beyond my reach and beyond the reach of anybody else by a company whose shareholders lacked the ability and/or interest in exploiting that work themselves. It's true that when I was 22 years old, I agreed to a bargain that allowed others to exclude me from what I had created. But when I was 23, I began to understand how the GPL could protect my rights from neglect (by guaranteeing my continuing rights to read, modify, and share software independently of the owner's desire to do likewise). And by the time I was 25, I understood how the GPL could also protect my rights from domination as well (by denying others the right to deny me of my rights). With that understanding, I found some like-minded libertarians and together we started the world's first company based on free software.
"But the company we founded did not trade exclusively in GPL-covered software..."
