Drugs [LWN.net]

Drugs

Posted Mar 28, 2006 20:43 UTC (Tue) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256)
In reply to: Patent trouble by felixfix
Parent article: Conference Report: FOSS Means Business, Belfast (Linux Journal)

I think you over-estimate the political influence of a couple million users and one faction of one segment of the IT economic realm.

Think of it this way: there have been 10s of millions of people who have called for the decriminalization of marijuana for decades now ... and yet they are still criminal; and the feds still impose their will over the popular majorities in some states which have tried to legalize or decriminalize its use (even just for medicinal purposes).

In times past when there was not only draft registration but an active military draft program ... it was obviously unpopular in large segments of hte population. Too bad. It was done and could be again.

In light of these historical events I would think that something as relatively "insignificant" as "some little computer stuff" (that doesn't run on Windows anyway) ... I think that it will have rather less sway than you think.

It's not a matter of "would it be too unpopular or disruptive." It really is a question of law and whether our "representatives" continue to act as the paid shills of their multi-national masters or whether we can actually get them to REPRESENT us.

JimD

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Business

Posted Mar 28, 2006 21:14 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Neither the draft nor drugs have anything to do with the economy, and business itself, in the form of alcohol and tobacco companies, was (and is) dead set against legalizing any kind of competition. If you tell even 1% of the businesses in the US to stop using their existing software, they will raise such a stink that St. Peter will have to hand out gas masks at the Pearly Gates. I bet 50% of businesses would be adversely affected by being told to stop using Linux, some more than others, and no one will ignore that.

The Wright brothers patented wing warping, which actually bent the thin wings then in use. Curtiss got around that by introducing ailerons, hinged sections of wing, that have been widespread ever since and are in fact necessary for any substantial wing. The patent battles went on for so long that eventually the US govt stepped in and either bought up the patents or knocked their heads together. The ostensible excuse was the the European war which we know of as WW I, which the US didn't enter until a year later.

I doubt the aviation market was even a hundredth as extensive back then as the Linux market is now.

You underestimate how widespread Linux is. The users who will stink out Congress are businesses, not people.