>> What we should really discuss publicly is [revolution]

> Oh very nice.  I assume you're volunteering to write all the world's
> software for free from now on, to make this plan of yours work?

Lots of people *currently* write software and release it free.  Many of
them even *do* it for free - and interestingly, like authors who wrote
with no expectation of ever seeing a dime from their work, the results
tend to be among the best software there is.  (Haven't you noticed what
a strong correlation there is between a piece of software being of high
quality and it being free?  Windows crashes daily, to the point where
nobody who uses it regularly even notices having to poke the reset
button every few hours.  And didn't someone recently mention a NetBSD
machine with an uptime of over a year?  Certainly mine would have that
sort of uptime if it weren't for power problems or deliberate shutdowns
(like, when I want to move this disk from machine A to machine B).)

> Those of us who program for a living work just as hard as anyone else
> and have every right to expect payment from those whose lives are
> made easier by our work,

Just because you work hard does not give you the right to expect
anything from anyone in return.  Not even if the work helps someone
else, though that arguably creates a vague *moral* right to some kind
of reciprocation, though certainly not a legal one.

> unless we specifically choose to give our property away for free.

The problem here, I think, is that you are speaking from a position
that presumes the current state of law.  Under the regime being
discussed, there would be - in a legal sense - no property to be given
away or kept.

> I suppose you think everything should be free?  Or is it just
> software, because that's what you personally like to steal?

I'm not the person you asked this of, but I will take this opportunity
to take a brief turn on the soapbox.  My position is that intellectual
property is a nice-sounding idea that didn't work out.  The whole
reason for having a legal notion of "property" that is "owned" evolved
out of a property of physical objects: that which one person has,
another does not.  Transferring an object deprives the donor of it.
Information does not share this fundamental property of physical
objects; that is why I believe it is completely inappropriate to extend
the legal notions of "property" and "ownership" to information.

> Do you think it'll be OK for people to make you work for nothing
> after you graduate?

I don't think anyone proposed *this*; it strikes me as a total
nonsequitur.  Nobody is being forced to do anything for nothing, nor
would be in the proposed society.  Neither would anyone be forced to
write software....

If this vision of mine were to come true, people still could get paid
for writing software.  Indeed, this happens now!  Look at Cygnus -
people getting paid to maintain GNU stuff, which cannot be treated the
way software usually is, and involves writing software that is given
away.  (Yeah, there'd be a lot fewer programming jobs.  The world would
be a very different place in many other ways, too.  I think it would,
overall, be better.  Many people disagree....)

In an attempt to drag in at least *some* relevance to the immediate
subject, I'll also note that I do not think this means it's OK to
ignore the existing IP laws.  I think they're misguided and stupid and
socially negative, but that's a reason to work to change them, not a
reason to ignore them.  (There's a place for ignoring laws, in civil
disobedience - but I don't think anyone is proposing civil disobedience
here; it certainly doesn't sound like it to me.)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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