Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 22:02:49 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> Cc: Trent Waddington <s337240@student.uq.edu.au>, David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman stalls again Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010302212858.045817c0@localhost> In-Reply-To: <20010302131916.G37575@lpt.ens.fr> References: <xzppug148r9.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <Pine.OSF.4.30.0103020435210.6243-100000@student.uq.edu.au> <xzppug148r9.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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At 05:19 AM 3/2/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: >The guy has extreme views. But I've begun realising only lately (in >the last 2 years, say) how far to the opposite extreme the rest of the >world is going -- ridiculous excesses of content protection and the >like. Stallman's efforts have, alas, escalated the war between content distributors and consumers. The old balance -- which relied upon the inconvenience of copying content -- has been jeopardized by the advent of broadband, the Internet, and CD-R. But instead of helping to create a new balance, Stallman's efforts are devoted to pushing the two sides apart. Yes, the content distributors have proposed and attempted some very unreasonable things. But they've been driven to it by very real and very illegal acts -- committed by people who trumpet Richard Stallman's words. (Yes, there are other rabble rousers -- such as John Perry Barlow -- in the mix. But they, too, mostly echo Stallman.) In a very real sense, RMS is like Shakespeare's Richard III. He thrives on and benefits from conflict and so takes glee in creating it. This is one reason why I take such strong issue with claims that RMS is a "genius," despite the fact that the MacArthur Foundation unwisely gave him an award whose name contained that word. It doesn't take a genius to instigate a great war. It DOES take one to broker a lasting peace. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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