[ale] Are our Ethernet drivers in danger?

[aaron]

Again, since it's independence day, I'm feeling patriotically
obliged to continue the GPL free speech discussion... :-)

Previously, Benjamin Scherrey typed into the ether:
> Joe's comments are correct. Releasing code developed using tax dollars, 
> outside of special circumstances such as the examples Joe gives, under any 
> kind of restrictive license is illegal. The GPL is an extremely restrictive 
> license and does act, in a sense, as a virus of sorts even though that is a 
> very pejorative term.

The pejorative "virus" wording is pure M$ slander. By implication of
their own distorted application of the term, they are themselves doing
nothing but purveying and distributing computer viruses.

There is absolutely nothing "restrictive" in the GPL: it simply states
the already implied residual commitment of "public domain"; the GPL is
simply reiterating that once public domain ideas are submitted to the
community, they should remain in the public domain, regardless if they
are employed with commercial or non commercial applications.

> That is, in fact, the stated intent of its creator who 
> espouses the elimination of intellectual property rights which goes against 
> the Constitution of the United States of America.

I hope you can please show me from which article(s) of the U.S.
Constitution you are interpreting this declaration of rights of
"intellectual property".

I ask because I find that this is an area where a lot of people in this
country are confused in their patriotic fervor. Most all of us have
lived our entire lives saturated in the propaganda of an exclusively
capitalist ideology and environment, often without any critical personal
inquiry into those theories or any dispassionate evaluation of the
real costs and benefits that they impose on our social environment.

So said, I feel it is my own patriotic duty <grin> to point out that,
while the concept of "patent" for physical invention was not unfamiliar
to our Constitution's founding authors (especially Ben Franklin), the
idea of "intellectual property" for language, authorship and speech was,
indeed, foreign to them. I believe the evidence for this lies in the
fact that our guarantees of free speech comprise the very first
amendment of their U.S. Constitution.

> The GPL is certainly a valid license, and I fully support the
> rights of private authors to utilize it, but it is not legal under
> the conditions of intellectual property developed at taxpayer
> expense.

On the contrary, I think legal history shows how the validity of the
GPL is protected under the first amendment for all applications of
this license involving public domain material.

peace
(after justice)
Aaron Ruscetta

PS:
Happy 4th of July!

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