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Re: [News] [Rival] More BSA-IDC-Microsoft Circus for New Laws Through Brainwash

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 wrote
on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:06:01 +0000
<3769997.pFX01qiRE7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> ____/ The Ghost In The Machine on Friday 18 July 2008 18:37 : \____
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
>> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>  wrote
>> on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:33:42 +0000
>> <1240058.FsmLz5orMg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>
>>> BSA: Software piracy's 'tragic' impact on US society
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | The BSA-sponsored IDC study, available here (pdf), pinpointed eight US
>>> | states in the report. It found significant variations from the national
>>> | piracy figure of 20 per cent.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/bsa_us_states_piracy/
>>>
>>> It's not "piracy" and it's clear who is paying for that
>>> pro-RAND, anti-FOSS BS (see below for recent
>>> BSA-IDC-Microsoft circuses all across the EU).
>> 
>> I'm not even sure it's theft (provided the writer is
>> properly identified in the credits of the borrowed work),
>> though it might be unrealized sales revenue.  Granted,
>> someone -- I'd have to look up who but it's either one of
>> the Founding Fathers or someone back in the 18th century,
>> if not earlier -- proposed copyrights, the intent being
>> to stop plagiarism, presumably; the general ideas include
>> the ability to control distribution, an issue if one were
>> to write something for the military (e.g., detailed plans
>> for a rocket propulsive device [*], perhaps, after one
>> retires from active service).  Controlling distribution
>> is a bit tough today, given things such as the Web,
>> YouTube, and widespread media digitization.
>> 
>> And of course there are issues if person A writes something
>> and person B includes it in his work; "fair use" used
>> to cover that though I'm not sure if it does anymore.
>> (It was a lot easier before cut and paste, I suspect.)
>> 
>> Admittedly, under ideal conditions FLOSS would track
>> everyone's contributions and changes, giving proper credit,
>> but even with a modern versioning tracking system such
>> as CVS, Subversion, Clearcase, or VSS (not all of which
>> are open source!), I frankly don't know if this will be
>> 100% doable, and not everyone uses such a system.  Also,
>> I can spin a couple of scenarios about disputed fixes.
>> 
>> [rest snipped for brevity]
>> 
>> [*] the 18th century not having figured out how to make
>>     uranium-235 go kaboom yet.
>
> The issue here is less to do with incentives but more to
> do with legislation that's FOSS-hostile, by nature.

FOSS is hostile to ownership of source code by *its* nature;
stands to reason.  Of course that's the whole point anyway;
share the code, stand on the shoulders of giants, improve
the codebase, do it out of love ("amateur").

> RAND is a good example. Isn't that beyond the
> remit of responsibility of the BSA?

I frankly don't know about RAND.  A quick Google on "RAND
legislation" coughed up

http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR288/

which appears to be more concerned about intelligence (in
the military or espionage sense) than intellectual property.

The original channelregister.co.uk link looks like a press
release tailored to sell the notion that the BSA is out
to help us.

>
> - -- 
>                 ~~ Best of wishes
>
> Roy S. Schestowitz      | Linux: does exactly what it says on the tin
> http://Schestowitz.com  |  RHAT GNU/Linux   |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
>  20:00:01 up 4 days,  9:27,  2 users,  load average: 0.97, 0.76, 0.67
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-- 
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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