In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:06:01 +0000
<3769997.pFX01qiRE7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> ____/ The Ghost In The Machine on Friday 18 July 2008 18:37 : \____
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
>> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote
>> on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:33:42 +0000
>> <1240058.FsmLz5orMg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>
>>> BSA: Software piracy's 'tragic' impact on US society
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | The BSA-sponsored IDC study, available here (pdf), pinpointed eight US
>>> | states in the report. It found significant variations from the national
>>> | piracy figure of 20 per cent.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/bsa_us_states_piracy/
>>>
>>> It's not "piracy" and it's clear who is paying for that
>>> pro-RAND, anti-FOSS BS (see below for recent
>>> BSA-IDC-Microsoft circuses all across the EU).
>>
>> I'm not even sure it's theft (provided the writer is
>> properly identified in the credits of the borrowed work),
>> though it might be unrealized sales revenue. Granted,
>> someone -- I'd have to look up who but it's either one of
>> the Founding Fathers or someone back in the 18th century,
>> if not earlier -- proposed copyrights, the intent being
>> to stop plagiarism, presumably; the general ideas include
>> the ability to control distribution, an issue if one were
>> to write something for the military (e.g., detailed plans
>> for a rocket propulsive device [*], perhaps, after one
>> retires from active service). Controlling distribution
>> is a bit tough today, given things such as the Web,
>> YouTube, and widespread media digitization.
>>
>> And of course there are issues if person A writes something
>> and person B includes it in his work; "fair use" used
>> to cover that though I'm not sure if it does anymore.
>> (It was a lot easier before cut and paste, I suspect.)
>>
>> Admittedly, under ideal conditions FLOSS would track
>> everyone's contributions and changes, giving proper credit,
>> but even with a modern versioning tracking system such
>> as CVS, Subversion, Clearcase, or VSS (not all of which
>> are open source!), I frankly don't know if this will be
>> 100% doable, and not everyone uses such a system. Also,
>> I can spin a couple of scenarios about disputed fixes.
>>
>> [rest snipped for brevity]
>>
>> [*] the 18th century not having figured out how to make
>> uranium-235 go kaboom yet.
>
> The issue here is less to do with incentives but more to
> do with legislation that's FOSS-hostile, by nature.
FOSS is hostile to ownership of source code by *its* nature;
stands to reason. Of course that's the whole point anyway;
share the code, stand on the shoulders of giants, improve
the codebase, do it out of love ("amateur").
> RAND is a good example. Isn't that beyond the
> remit of responsibility of the BSA?
I frankly don't know about RAND. A quick Google on "RAND
legislation" coughed up
http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR288/
which appears to be more concerned about intelligence (in
the military or espionage sense) than intellectual property.
The original channelregister.co.uk link looks like a press
release tailored to sell the notion that the BSA is out
to help us.
>
> - --
> ~~ Best of wishes
>
> Roy S. Schestowitz | Linux: does exactly what it says on the tin
> http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
> 20:00:01 up 4 days, 9:27, 2 users, load average: 0.97, 0.76, 0.67
> http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
|
|
