Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!hc!lll-winken!uunet!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: New Communicational Morality
Keywords: software, copyright, society
Message-ID: <3754@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 7 Apr 89 18:08:17 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 106

In article <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu>, dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu (David Lawyer) writes:
> In article <3687@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes:
> >Fourth - uh, is Datafuhrer Frank trying to tell us that material
> >communism has worked well enough to be a role model that
> >the information sciences should adopt?  If so, what planet
> >is he living on?  Material communism has meant poverty,
> >oligarchy, mass murder, brutal repression -- the list goes
> >on.  Is *that* what he wants the software field to emulate?
> >
> >Jeff Daiell
> 
> By "material communism" it is not clear what you talking about.  The
> Soviet Union does not have a communist economy and never did (except
> possibly during "War-Communism" during the Civil War.


But it has often pursued such a goal, and look at the horrors the
Soviet government has inflicted upon its own citizens in that
pursuit.  How many millions were deliberately starved by Stalin
in his attempt to force agricultural collectivization?  How many
murdered because they opposed various aspects of communization?
And look at other Soviet bloc nations, and the horrors they've
committed, either within their own borders or while attempting to
bring totalitarianism to other nations.

> but in terms of poverty, the USSR has make more
> progress since say 1920 than has the US.

Uh, need I point out they had massively further to go?  And
that we have damaged our economy severely by becoming *less*
capitalistic?  That had we,  in that 1920 you mention, turned
toward great freedom and less authoritarianism,  we might
have virtually eliminated hunger and deprivation from these
United States by now?


> think that the jury is
> still out regarding the comparative advantages of socialism, communism,
> and capitalism.

Again -- what planet are you living on?  Try surveying those who have
lived in both the Soviet Union and the  United States as average
citizens.

> 
> Now back to software copyright.  I think the philosophy expressed by a
> Soviet writer some years ago ... 
> is a good one.  
> ....  The purpose should be (he claims and I agree) to balance
> the right of the author of a program to reasonable compensation for his
> efforts with the "right" of the public to use the software. 

Next, let's balance your right to live in your home with my right to
use it.

> I think
> that the recognition of the public's right to use the software is
> important (but this does not necessarily mean the right to use it at no
> cost at all).

See above.

> Software has all the attributes of a free good since the marginal cost
> of making another copy is next to nothing.

This doesn't change an author's right to control his/her own property.

>  However, to qualify for a
> free good it should also be of general usefulness.  Thus I would
> propose that the United Nations (or another international organization)

Are you seriously proposing turning over software development to
bureaucrats and politicians -- people who owe their success not to
skill at electronics, but skill at PR?

> Taxes could be levied on computer
> equipment to help pay for this (but the UN has no such authority at
> present). 

Are people taxed enough already?  Aren't computers already difficult
enough for some folks to afford?  As always, the first option of
a coercionist is to make the folks at the bottom suffer.

> 
> The copyright laws on software need to be changed.  First, a copyright
> holder should have the duty to make source code (adequately commented)
> available to all who request it.

And should you have a duty to let me live in your home?


I think we should protect people's rights *more*, not less; provide
*more* incentive for people to produce software, not less.

Sorry, Dave; I'm just not enthused about making Big Brother even
bigger.  Laissez faire, laissez passer.


Para un Tejas Libre,

Jeff Daiell


-- 


                              Salve lucrum!