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