Well, if you want to get technical... [LWN.net]

Well, if you want to get technical...

Posted Sep 14, 2003 17:56 UTC (Sun) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047)
Parent article: Interview: Linux usage raises big legal concerns (Gulf News)

Those of us in the Free Software movement actually don't believe in "intellectual property" rights. We believe in copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, which are widly divergent areas of law; furthermore, we believe such laws are being horribly abused from their original intent, and that advocates of "IP" are the ones doing the abusing. So really, Mr. Kateeb may well be correct, in the most technical sense.

However, the sense that he was implying, that being that we don't respect copyright law, is quite incorrect. Given the widespread confusion about what "intellectual property" really is, and who respects or does not respect it, and that Microsoft is a major contributor to this confusion, I think we might assume that Mr. Kateeb is trying to exploit that confusion for MS's gain.

Of course, that would mean thinking that a major company would feel the need to engage in underhanded tactics to win market share, that their products can't stand on their own merit, and that they feel the need to bully everyone around them to maintain dominance. And that couldn't be true, could it?!

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Well, if you want to get technical...

Posted Sep 14, 2003 18:16 UTC (Sun) by neoprene (guest, #8520) [Link]

>> a major company would feel the need to engage in underhanded tactics to win market share, that their products can't stand on their own merit <<<

M$ is not concerned about "winning market share", they got ~ 95% of the desktops, their concern is maintaining hegemony. Without that crap like .NET will not fly.
M$ has always been obsessive about eliminating even the smallest competitor, now they got Linux on their hands. Expect this to get ugly.
$45 Billion buys a lot of press coverage.

Well, if you want to get technical...

Posted Sep 14, 2003 18:18 UTC (Sun) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Exactly. The confusion is between "respecting" the law as abiding it and "respecting" the law as believing that it's just. I, for one, believe that keeping copyright for 70 years is outrageous, and so is patenting of obvious "one-click" software solutions. I believe that the concept of "intellectual property" should not exist because it's not property and it should not be granted to anybody for life. I believe that fair use of copyrighted works should be a right, not a privilege.

But in the same time I don't violate copyright laws and I don't misappropriate others' code in my projects.

Well, if you want to get technical...

Posted Sep 14, 2003 22:07 UTC (Sun) by meffie (guest, #3120) [Link]

They know exactly what they are doing. They are trying to twist this into a case of property, something the layman understands. It worked for the media companies.

Copyright = property may not be accurate in a strict legal sense, but it still makes common sense, even to the Supreme Court...

Watch the language. While the one side talks about "licenses" with verbs like copy, distribute, play, share and perform, the other side talks about "rights" with verbs like own, protect, safeguard, protect, secure, authorize, buy, sell, infringe, pirate, infringe and steal. This isn't just a battle of words. It's a battle of understandings.

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