On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 09:05:38AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote: > Thomas Bushnell, BSG writes: > > Sure. Why don't we adopt RMS's? That would be my first vote. > > Well, because RMS is wrong. Why should a free software license allow > someone to keep software proprietary within a single legal entity? > That's the end result of his privacy requirement -- to encourage some > users to keep software proprietary. It's really weird to hear RMS > argue in favor of that. Perhaps because he also values personal, individual privacy. In the U.S., thanks to _Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company_[1], which is *still* a controlling precedent, it's very difficult to draw a distinction between individual privacy and "corporate privacy" that will be upheld in court. Large corporations, with the help of their shills in government, are already fiendishly efficient at demolishing individual privacy; I for one am not yet ready to sign on to the philosophy of the panopticon. (As an aside, it just occurred me that the relative prominence of Christian Fundamentalism -- and wider subscription to monotheistic religion in general -- in the United States when contrasted with Europe may explain why U.S. citizens in general so meekly fritter away their privacy -- God can already see everything you do and punish you for your sins, so what does it matter if the Government or the Company can, too?) [1] http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Santa/ -- G. Branden Robinson | Humor is a rubber sword - it allows Debian GNU/Linux | you to make a point without drawing branden@debian.org | blood. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Mary Hirsch
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