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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: The GNU Manifesto
Message-ID: <907@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 09:42:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.907
Posted: Tue Mar 26 09:42:05 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Mar-85 00:58:45 EST
References: <2767@sdcc3.UUCP>
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 24

Richard Stallman is much to be commended for having enough courage of
conviction to devote such an amount of time and hard work to a very
commendable cause.

I do, however, wish that he would not be quite so religiously adamant
about those who disagree with him.  "Intellectual property" is as real
as any other.  Why should I expect less of an ownership right to the
fruits of my labor simply because the output is not tangible?  Richard
suffers from the common trait of economic naivete.  Software is not air.
Why should I be taxed to support the writing of COBOL programs?

Forgive the disjointed nature of the last paragraph - I'm trying to be
brief and I'm afraid I may be making myself obscure.  Let me
reemphasize, though, that while I disagree with some of his views, I
applaud his efforts.  I'm working on some quasi-public domain stuff
myself (though nowhere near as ambitious) and I think I'm closer to his
ideas than the above might suggest.

How's that for a wishy-washy posting?
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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