“Cyberspace is becoming more regulable, but open source will
weaken this ability.“
“You’ve argued that the Net is unregulable, but not
uncontrollable. How does open source fit into the equation?…”
“Government’s ability to regulate code weakens if code is open
source code, because with open source code it’s easier for people
to opt out of the government regulation by pulling out the
government module and plugging in another kind of module. Open
source becomes a check on government’s power to monopolistic code.
In closed code, it’s much easier for government to regulate. Right
now, for example, the government is attempting to get telephone
companies to change their code so that it’s easier to wiretap
telephones. As a user of the telephone there is nothing I can do to
change that code — I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know what I
could do — but if it were open source code, then there would be a
lot of things I could do.”