07 Mar 2005

Justice Ain’t the Same as Wisdom

The United States Department of Justice announced today that it would be making a radical purchasing decision: stop dealing with the firm it considers an illegal monopoly. No more Microsoft Word at Main Justice. So they will spend $13 million to acquire Word Perfect licenses from Corel. Did they consider OpenOffice at $0? Why bother—Let’s just cut Social Security benefits instead.

permalink | politics/govt-software | 2005.03.07-20:17.00

01 Mar 2005

After the Oscars

Okay, the Hollywood crowd have had their party. I didn’t watch; I think they’re entitled to do their preening and gloating by themselves. What they’re not entitled to do is to veto the Internet because it gets in the way of their ownership of culture. Which is what I told the United States Supreme Court in a brief amici curiae I filed today, on behalf of the Free Software Foundation and New Yorkers for Fair Use.

permalink | cases/grokster | 2005.03.01-21:33.00