[FYI] Should Public Policy Support Open Source Software?

["Ralf Stephan" <ralf@ark.in-berlin.de>]

http://www.prospect.org/controversy/open_source/

								Controversy
                                 ROUND TWO:
                                      
   * Eric S. Raymond
   "We trust the invisible hand of the market partly because we are the
   invisible hand. And most (though not all) of us believe we can punish
   Microsoft's misbehavior and hubris more effectively and more ethically
   than could be done through government action." [read more]
   * Lawrence Lessig (New Particpant)
   "I want to ask: Come on, Eric -- do you really think 'free market' is
   self-defining or self-generating? Do strong patent rights, for
   example, exist in your 'free market'? Are those 20 year monopolies
   granted by a government bureaucrat 'property' or 'regulation'?" [read
   more]
   * Nathan Newman 
   "We need new paradigms for compensating artists, writers and
   programmers. For a radical suggestion, I would note the model of
   British libraries where authors are paid a sum by the government every
   time a book is borrowed from a library. This could be extended to the
   Net with a payment-per-download system from government funds." [read
   more]
   * Jeff A. Taylor
   "It seems to me that with UCITA, big software makers are more worried
   about having to support funked up code than taking every bit twiddler
   to court." [read more]
   * Jonathan Band
   "The open-source community, however, will be making a terrible mistake
   if it believes that the government has no relevance to its activities.
   If it assumes this posture, the proprietary interests will succeed in
   convincing Congress to overprotect intellectual property." [read more]
   ...
 

ralf
-- 
http://ME.IN-berlin.de/~rws/