20 Oct 2001
Patently Controversial
The patent system is heralded by some around the world, particuarly pharmaceuticals companies, as essential to innovation. As I have written here before, patents not only do not assist in the production of innovative software, they can potentially destroy the free software production system, which is the world’s most important source of software innovation.
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2001.10.20-00:00.00
10 Sep 2001
Enforcing the GPL, II
Last month I described in general terms the legal theory of the GPL. This month, I’d like to explain how, contrary to the fear, uncertainty and doubt sown by Microsoft, the license is actually enforced.
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2001.09.10-00:00.00
12 Aug 2001
Enforcing the GPL, I
Microsoft’s anti-GPL offensive this summer has sparked renewed speculation about whether the GPL is “enforceable.” This particular example of “FUD” (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is always a little amusing to me. I’m the only lawyer on earth who can say this, I suppose, but it makes me wonder what everyone’s wondering about: Enforcing the GPL is something that I do all the time.
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2001.08.12-00:00.00
14 Jun 2001
Microsoft Before the Earthquake
Microsoft is continuing its charm offensive against free software. Last month we were merely a threat to the American Way of Life. This month, it turns out, we are “a cancer.” That, at any rate, was the conclusion Steve Ballmer offered one of the leading daily newspapers in the US.
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2001.06.14-00:00.00
21 May 2001
Microsoft Strikes Back
Now that the Soviet Empire is no more, Microsoft has identified the greatest current threat to the American Way of Life. Not global warming, corporate irresponsibility, or bad public education: no, the nemesis of American values and global prosperity is—the free software movement.
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2001.05.21-00:00.00
09 Apr 2001
The Public’s Business
The world’s largest market for computer software should soon belong overwhelmingly to free software. That looks like a remarkable statement, I suppose, but it’s actually an easy prediction.
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2001.04.09-00:00.00
04 Feb 2001
Software Keeps Music Free
Last month I spoke at the Future of Music Policy Summit in Washington, DC, where an unusually broad array of participants in all sides of the digital music controversy came together within shouting distance of the Congress. Most of what I had to say in my own public remarks concerned an issue primarily important in the US: the fate of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its prohibition on “circumvention” of access control technology that prevents fair use of digital multimedia. The DMCA has had international effects, to be sure, including the prosecution of a Norwegian, Jon Johansen, for his involvement in helping to build a Linux-based DVD player, about which I have written in this space before. But the Summit made me think more about other, less local aspects of the relationship between free software and the transformation of multimedia content distribution, and about the death of the recording industry in particular.
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2001.02.04-00:00.00
03 Dec 2000
Free Software or Open Source?
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2000.12.03-00:00.00
07 Nov 2000
Property, 3s; Barbed Wire, 8s
So we’ve all been talking about Microsoft again lately. Except this time they’re the victim. Whoever broke into Microsoft’s internal network (taking advantage once again of the ludicrous Microsoft email clients that allow execution of code contained in incoming mail) has certainly generated a great deal of sympathy for Microsoft and good deal of worry about everyone else’s security.
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2000.11.07-00:00.00
09 Oct 2000
The Patent Problem
Free software is about open standards. The high quality and reliability of free software emerges naturally and directly from the complete sharing of all information and the opportunity to improve the product. Closed protools and closed code radically reduce the number of people who are available to develop, test and repair software, which in turn means lesser quality and reliability. And because code is not freely available for modification, someone who has a better idea has to start over from scratch, which means that fundamental improvements happen much more slowly.
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2000.10.09-00:00.00