Re: bit-split, or: the schizophrenia of trusted computing

[Lluis]

El Mon, May 01, 2006 at 12:28:01AM -0400, Jonathan S. Shapiro ens deleità amb 
les següents paraules:
[...]
> And no, you really *didn't* answer the painting question.

For me, it is a simple question of _ethics_ (please, don't talk about 
moral).

First of all, let's say that we are (as I undestood) basically talking 
about copyrights.

Why do copyrights exist? They first appeared (at least for what I know) on 
the printing (pre)industry, first of all, because a print was a very 
difficult to obtain _object_, so reproductions would break the supposed 
production equilibrium. But most important is the fact that the 
intellectual ownership derived from printed copyrights was a means of the 
power (understood as the king or ruling entity of that place on that time) 
to control who could print and what could "say", as it had the means to 
control who the copyright royalties were given to.

This were the origins, but nowadays it has "evolved" to a model that 
coexists with capitalism, and tries to give some properties inherent to 
_real_ objects to some insubstancial creations.

It has to be added to this, all that Markus said about the property of 
culture and knowledge (which _should_ not be a privilege), and medias that 
have no cost of _exact_ duplication (this does not happen with a chair, for 
example), so trying to transubstantize some things like software lead to 
the present IT market industry (I think we all know how good and ethic it 
is on its majority).

I don't think that propietary software should be forcibly banned from earth 
(although I'd like it to naturally disappear on the general use), but I 
think that at least the money (it's always all about money...) the citizens 
pay to their governments should always revert on the citizens, so in the 
field of IT it should be free software. And we all know that it doesn't 
happen like this in many - all! - the fields, specially after seeing how a 
given model in the coutry I live has lead all it's city governemnts and the 
like to speculate with their own terrain to be able to economically 
survive, when the right to live under a roof is one of those wonderful 
basic rights that their sacrosanct constitution contains.

Well think that I got out of the theme, and I'm hungry, good dinner! :)

-- 
 "And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn
 something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."
 -- The Princess of Pure Reason, as told by Norton Juster in The Phantom
 Tollbooth
 
 Listening: Lacrimosa (Inferno) - 2. Kabinett der Sinne