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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 16 Dec 1995 07:41:55 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
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mingo@news.siemens.co.at (Ingo Molnar) wrote:
This is a much more salient metadiscussion. Thank you.
] OK, i rephrase my point: there exists a legal possibility
] to destroy valuable information, since information can be
] owned.
There is nothing in what you suggest nor in GPL that prevents
the existance of Trade Secrets. As I have pointed out in
other posts, it is relatively easy to compromise the intent
of GPL without violating the letter of it.
It seems that GPL is not the instrument that was intended if
it was designed to defeat the ownership of information by way
of "viral infection", as some people colorfully put it.
] Owning information = power. Power = the ability to change
] things on the global scale. But information is not a thing
] that should be a subject evolution, it's a special thing
] that once gotten is pretty valuable. And IMHO i dont like
] power, since i believe in microdynamics, rather than in
] macrodynamics.
OK. This is your opinion.
Let's say (only for the sake of argument) that we accept the
inherent premise that socialism is the ideal order.
Can you sucessfully institute it by replacing a capitalist
society one component at a time? I don't think so. And yes,
I do have counter arguments to the current trends in the US
toward things like a national health care system.
Further, I think the concept of "socialism is the ideal order"
is fundamentally flawed because it ignores basic human nature.
[ ... private control of information ... ]
] : You have yet to prove that this is "a bad thing".
]
] It is a "bad thing" in the sense of scientific advance.
] Restricted information means less informed (=less productive)
] individuals.
I think this is in error. The flaw lies in the implied premise
that "all people are educable". This is the fundamental flaw
behind the failures in attempting to control what are commonly
considered socila ills by means of the educational system. I
say commonly considered, since in order to use the educational
system as a tool for any length of time, the opinion that
something constitutes a "social ill" must be held by the
majority (restricting ourselves to democratic countries).
] The problem is that science itself isnt the only "human activity"
] that uses "global resources". So it has to "compete".
]
] If we take this very abstact, this is OK. But we live in a finite
] world, and your model of "competing organisms" just creates
] "super-entities", a well-known effect in the field of genetic
] algorithms, in the real world they are called "monopolies".
]
] And these "super-entities" are stable too.
Yes. This naturally follows from the model. It's how you get
from individual humans to nation-states. The potential hole in
this model is in identification of as single "meta-super-entity",
which in this discussion is "the common good of mankind".
] "Free market" exists only for infinite worlds.
That's a very entropic statement. I believe it to be in
error as well. The underlying assumption you have is that
human endeavor is zero sum for a closed system. I don't
think that this is provably true.
] The problem is, that information is handled just the same way as
] "matter". Information is something special, other rules should
] apply to it.
]
] The problem is that research interacts with the market directly.
] Thus making technical inventions, which are considered useful for
] the whole organism called humanity, a subject of "selling".
]
] my view about information:
]
] - it has costs to "make" it, as everything else
] - Information can be replicated at virtually no cost.
] - "good" information can be useful or useless for any organizm, but
] it cant make harm
] - harm can be done only if that information is "bad", to be
] puristic (lets say i implement a system that doesnt solve a
] problem, or somebody lies about me)
] - information should not be destroyed, it should only be created
]
] Do you see? These properties are VERY different from normal matter.
] So your arguments are not acceptable, to say the least. You dont
] distinct between information and matter!
I *do* make a distinction. I simply want to amortize the
production costs to fund the production of more information.
You want to socialize the information once it exists, without
regard to providing a domino mechanism for production of
additional information. You believe that information will
be created without economic incentive, but offer no scenario
in which this will inevitably happen. I sorry, but I can't
take that belief as one of my axioms without proof.
I have to dismiss the normative qualities of "good" and "bad'
as they relate to information. Information is neutral. The
classic example used for this type of discussion is atomic
fission.
I agree that the information should not be destroyed. But I
agree because it is a common belief we share, not because you
have proven it.
The only real difference between information and matter you
have enumerated above is that of cost of replication. You
think replictaion should occur at individual discretion. I
think there should be an economic tie in to incent addition
production of information.
] Since information is handled like matter, currently, one
] can only make models how it could be handled. Making models
] about information handling is not the same as making models
] about how organizsm should interact with each other. (ie.
] i'm not dreaming, i'm just thinking)
I take this as a veiled referenc to intellectual property law
reform, which is of course at the heart of the intent of GPL.
I have suggested a much less drastic middle ground mechanism,
and I'll suggest it again: the software patent. This is a
compound word; I do not mean a standard process patent that
is issued for software.
Consider: copyright lasts the lifetime of the author plus 50
years. Patents last approximately one quareter of a human
life expentancy. Of the two, patents are less onerous.
Consider a "software patent". It is a hypothetical instrument
that protects software for a set period of time, as copyright,
but requires a source escrow to activate the protection. After
the protection period expires, the source, in machine readable
form, and all binary copies become public domain.
At the same time, the possibility of patent and copyright
protection, in the traditional sense, is denied. Software
may only be protected by "software patent".
This contributes to the "public domain" in the same way as GPL,
without removing the economic incentive from companies that
are actively developing products. At most, you have to wait
until expiration to use their source to make a derivative, so
an active company is protected, while an inactive one is not,
since the company has up to the expiration period to improve
the product. A good comapny can keep two years ahead of any
potential competition.
And the information is never "lost".
Regards,
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.