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On the defense of piracy enablersOn the defense of piracy enablersPosted Aug 25, 2005 1:40 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501)Parent article: On the defense of piracy enablers
I have to say that after reading this thread, I find myself unable to understand Florian's distinction between interoperability in games software and interoperability in other spheres. It seems totally artificial to me. The ability to write interoperable software for _any_ purpose legally is something to be defended. I don't see that it makes any difference if the software is entertainment-oriented or work-oriented. This theory would seem to suggest that writing software for playing video is not something Florian feels should be defended if the original producers of video-playing software did not approve (movies being entertainment, not productivity (usually)). But I think most people who run Linux feel that it is important to preserve the ability of the mplayer, gstreamer, VLC and xine teams to continue their (excellent) work.
Personally I am totally unintested in computer games, but I still think it is important that it is legal to write something like the bnetd server, or at the very least that it was right for the EFF to fight the case.
I don't feel like an IP extremist - I write software (and licences) and books, and thus have an interest in my 'author's rights', but I will admit to having become a stong supporter of Free Software, and not always paying as much for my movies and music as hollywood would like. I've also spent quite a lot of time talking to politicians about IP recently, although amittedly on nothing like the scale Florian achieved, and would agree that there is quite a strong tendency for them to think of IP as 'generally a good thing', but equally it is perfectly possible to explain to most of them that there is a balance to be struck and 'more IP' is not always better, and they do understand the importance of interoperability. It does feel like Florian wants to special-case his own area of activities, but perhaps I am simply failing to grasp his thesis.
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