Re: Design principles and ethics

[Pierre THIERRY]

Scribit Bas Wijnen dies 04/05/2006 hora 09:22:
> We have all these cool new options, but we'll block them because some
> guys with a lot of money are too lazy to come up with a new business
> plan.

That's very harsh and I suspect you have no regular author or artist in
your relatives.

But there is here a deep difference between me and at least Marcus and
you: I am deeply convinced that we should let people do bad things that
only harm themselves.

That is, if some software author wants to publish closed source and ask
a giantic fee, no problem.

I am aware that in some cases, at least when there is collusion or
monopoly, their freedom to do anything with their own work begins to
harm the freedoms of others.

But I'm also convinced that there are much better way to fight those
cases than forbidding those unethical behaviours. Free software is a
very good example. There has been, and there still is, a struggle
against proprietary software, and this latters clearly harm society.

But when you fight too directly the evil that is inside human nature,
instead of bringing the good that is inside it to fight for you, I'm
really convinced you do more harm than good.

To sum up, I think the fact that some of us can harm the others because
we abuse our own freedoms is sometimes a price to pay for the humanity
to evolve for the better. It is very difficult, though, to distinguish
when the harm is too much compared to what freedom should be taken to
avoid it.

In the case of copyright, I still think reasoning only about the cost is
delusional. It has never been the real issue. For what I know, never. As
Marcus cited Hegel, one's work is something that reflects himself, it's
a part of him. It should lead us to give some control to the author on
his work. If you give too much freedom to the public here, you could do
a lot of harm to authors. I really think that could bring them to
produce less. Much less, I don't know...

BTW, I have a question for the sake of curiosity: do you place
everything you produce in public domain?

> > I agree that ideas should always be free. Indeed, society globally
> > agrees with that, and patents and copyrights are exceptions. This is
> > chy they have a duration. Thoses exceptions could not last forever.
> The US no longer agrees.  They intend to extend the duration of
> copyright on regular intervals (just before Mickey Mouse would
> expire), also effecting existing works (that is, Mickey Mouse).

Yes, this is something we should be very concerned about. That is really
a perversion of the copyright idea.

> I think that the term for copyrights is absurdly long, which
> effectively makes them "forever", and (due to the almost zero cost
> copying) it isn't realistic (or desirable) anymore to promise authors
> that they have the exclusive right on making copies.

I would tend to agree that copyright term should be lowered now, instead
of extending it. I think it should be a great way to adapt to our new
millenium. FWIW, we should do the same for patents, which would make
them less dangerous and then less useful for those who abuse them.

> > I'm less sure about patents.
> Patents are even worse, and also even more off-topic. ;-)

Patents are all but a trivial issue.

Ethically,
Nowhere man
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