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Ed Felten in the Economist 102

Posted by chrisd from the taking-your-toys-apart-to-see-how-they-work dept.
shaikeiro writes "A fine article in the Economist about Ed Felten and what he is up to now. Also a good summary of what "freedom to tinker" means. From the article: "Thus, the freedom to tinker ends up being about the freedom of culture."" Are you a member of the EFF yet?
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Ed Felten in the Economist More

Ed Felten in the Economist

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  • Someone seems to have tinkered with his surname - is it Felten or Felton??

  • Familiar... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @05:23AM (#4226560)
    Thought this seemed familiar, I read it nearly three months ago in the print edition.

    Still, he makes some very good points. Have a look at the news story below to read about the 5-year jailterm Champion Of The People Fritz 'they named an evil chip after me' Hollings and others are trying to get you if you dare to tinker. How do people who work against the interests of the people who elected them so continue to get elected?

    http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956811.html?tag=fd_t op [com.com]
    • They live in states like South Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina and Alaska!
    • While I'm glad that Senator Allen withdrew his support for the bill, his reasoning is dismaying. A bunch of big corporations didn't like the revised bill because it could open them to liability. Maybe a clause should be inserted exempting ISP's - that would address the concerns of these corporations. Allen does not seem at all interested in the impact of this law on citizens.

  • ALERT: EFF Holds 2nd Annual Music Share-In (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    [eff.org]

    ALERT: EFF Holds 2nd Annual Music Share-In. Party for the Future of Music!


    Saturday, September 14th from noon - 5pm, at Golden Gate Park's Music Concourse Bandshell Join the EFF, five Bay Area bands, stiltwalkers, unicyclists, jugglers and other performers for an afternoon of live music and outdoor fun at EFF's second annual Share In.

  • Squidded ??? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mirko ( 198274 )
    Surprisingly enough, the EFF.org website has been blacklisted from my Company's firewall.
    This is a public administration which has *no* interest in preventing Free speech.

    They use some (Open Source) Squid-based server to proxy us, so, my question (this is indeed a question, NOT a troll) is What's on eff.org that would bother a Swiss administration's proxy ?

    • pr0n ?
    • violence ?
    • extreme-right opinions ?


    The above suggestions correspond to the server's black-listing criteria...
    • Assuming you can connect to Google [google.com] then try this:

      Google Cache of the EFF main page [216.239.33.100]

      Hope this helps. Cheers. :-)

      • It will fetch me the original text while the pictures won't be cached but replaced with some Squid logo.
        I actually didn't clik on your link lest this would add to my company unauthorized access log record...
        (or lest this'd lead to some goatse thing which is probably not the case ;-)
        • I actually didn't clik on your link lest this would add to my company unauthorized access log record...
          (or lest this'd lead to some goatse thing which is probably not the case ;-)
          Heh...well, it isn't...but I'm sure I could hunt up the Google cache for it if you want. ;)

          Anyway, you aren't missing much by not seeing the images. The top is just the EFF logo. Then, under "EFF Needs You", the first is kind of a funky looking shiny side of a CD, and the Second is Sen. Hollings on a cartoonish TV set. On the right is a small b&w of Larry Lessig and below that the Tinsel Town Club logo.

          Cheers. :)

      • Why not using the translator? It won't solve the problem with images, but
        http://translate.google.com/translate_c?hl=ID&u= UR

        (substitute ID for your destination preferred language (en if you want English) and UR for the desired URL).

        It certainly works for me (and if you want those images, you just can use the same trick, Translate will resend them with no change whatsoever)
    • Some web filters (Websense [websense.com], for one) have an explicit blocking category for political advocacy.

      Political advocacy may cause excessive thinking on the job, dissension from commonplace views, dissatisfaction with society, and is known to foster a spirit of rebelliousness. Obviously as dangerous as porn.

      Just do your work and don't worry about it.

  • Not everyone knows that Ed Felten is an
    anti-DMCA activist, so it would have been
    helpful to spell this out in the blurb.

    • Oh dear! (Score:1)

      by 23 ( 68042 )
      Translation:

      *Please* don't make me click on the link read an article before I am able to post an insightful/funny/whatever comment to /. !!!!

      right?

      Let's hope this never happens again! But if it does, rest assured that an article from the Economist is worth your time, no matter what it's about. IMHO the Economist is the best English language news magazine on the market.


      Roland

      • Re:Oh dear! (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by RobotWisdom ( 25776 )
        "Translation: '*Please* don't make me click on the link read an article before I am able to post an insightful/funny/whatever comment to /. !!!!' right?"

        No, not even close. I'm campaigning against the laziness and selfishness of the blurb-authors who can't be troubled to write an informative blurb, and against the common Slashdot attitude that it's somehow more 3l33t and studly to click on every link, whether you know what it's about or not.

        Some people have their own priorities to keep them busy, and well-designed hypertext should make their lives easier not harder.

        "rest assured that an article from the Economist is worth your time"

        Geez, you're not half-pompous, are you?

        • "rest assured that an article from the Economist is worth your time" Geez, you're not half-pompous, are you?

          Actually, in this case I think that Roland is just plain right about the Economist being the best English-language news magazine around today. But then, I've only been writing non-fiction technical articles professionally since 1984, so I doubt that you will give my opinion much credence.

          Consider that the Economist articles have far fewer misspelled words and grammer abortions than SlashDot by a wide margin. Never mind the reporting is top-notch.

          It's the essence of clear writing, intelligent but not pompous (to use what appears to be your favorite word). Can you do as well?

          • "Actually, in this case I think that Roland is just plain right about the Economist being the best English-language news magazine around today."

            And do you also agree with him that anytime anyone sees a link to an Economist article they should read it without question? (If so, I think you have a screw loose.)

            "But then, I've only been writing non-fiction technical articles professionally since 1984, so I doubt that you will give my opinion much credence."

            Quite right. Tech writers rank pretty low on my scale of values.

            "Consider that the Economist articles have far fewer misspelled words and grammer abortions than SlashDot by a wide margin."

            Heh. Love that 'grammer'.

            "It's the essence of clear writing, intelligent but not pompous (to use what appears to be your favorite word)."

            I'd say you're a tad hasty in that deduction, given the miniscule sample size.

            "Can you do as well?"

            'Click' on my 'link' for 'prose' 'samples'.

  • For those who don't know who this is (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @05:27AM (#4226569)
    For those who don't know who this is:

    http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/Felten_v_RIAA/ [eff.org]

    Posted anonymously so as to not karma whore...
  • Knowing how to tune a car engine does not allow a tinkerer to build a competing product, whereas software that cracks a copy-protection system can easily be used to distribute millions of identical copies. Dr Felten agrees. But his aim is not to solve the problem of free-riding; it is to analyse the value of tinkering.

    I think that the majority already agrees on the benefits on the "freedom to tinker". What companies currently cannot solve, is the free-riding problem. It does not matter how much you preach about tinkering, as long as it damages existing business, it is freedom stinker for many companies. Dr Felten is clearly a clever man, maybe he could put his energy in solving that instead.

    • It does not matter how much you preach about tinkering, as long as it damages existing business, it is freedom stinker for many companies.

      The way you choose your words incicates that either 1) You didn'y read the article, or 2) You read it but didn't understand it.

      *Tinkering* per-ce doesn't damage anything (Well, except maybe your stereo or whatever thing you are tinkering with).

      Let's say that the entertainment Mafia gets everything they want today. That is, tonight every thing they have ever requested will be written into law. Do you think they will stop demanding new things ?? No way !

      And that is exactly why you have to protect your rights. If you don't you might wake up one morning and only be able to 'lease' certain things, that is, pay rent for using them.
      Hmmmm, ,... to late ....

      • The way you choose your words incicates that either 1) You didn'y read the article, or 2) You read it but didn't understand it. *Tinkering* per-ce doesn't damage anything (Well, except maybe your stereo or whatever thing you are tinkering with).

        I quess it's the 2) then. Tinkering per-ce does not damage anything - true, still there should be some common practise around it. Otherwise companies have to use silliness like DMCA as their protection: they have to kill "tinkering" because no-one knows better(or commonly acceptable by business) ways to unleash only the good things that come with it.

    • Re:yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kubrick ( 27291 )
      I think that the majority already agrees on the benefits on the "freedom to tinker". What companies currently cannot solve, is the free-riding problem. It does not matter how much you preach about tinkering, as long as it damages existing business, it is freedom stinker for many companies. Dr Felten is clearly a clever man, maybe he could put his energy in solving that instead.

      If your business model revolves around restricting others' freedom, and it's easier to change laws than to actually provide the public with a product worth buying, isn't that a sign that something is seriously fucked up? Obviously not... let's just work on improving the bars and chains, then.

      • If your business model revolves around restricting others' freedom, and it's easier to change laws than to actually provide the public with a product worth buying, isn't that a sign that something is seriously fucked up? Obviously not... let's just work on improving the bars and chains, then.

        Aww. Just the reaction I thought it would cause. We already know that something IS seriously fucked up. We also already know that everyone would be best of with "freedom to tinker". Now, we need to get a recipe for getting out of this. It is the existing state of things - the world around you - that is the problem. Companies resort to DMCA to protect their existing business that was based on grounds (which was fucked up, as you put it) that are to be changed. Now, someone should come up with a plan that secures both the freedom and the business. Maybe you can share your secret plan how to do that?

        • I'm not the best person to ask -- I'm probably pretty close to communitarian anarchy in my political beliefs, I don't believe in property rights beyond those necessary to immediate survival and I wouldn't drink down the pap the major media companies try to feed me if you paid me to. Go ask someone who already drank the Kool-Aid.

          I'd argue that the companies, small and large, should change the way they do business, and concentrate on producing content of such quality that people are encouraged to pay for it to make sure its production is guaranteed. I'd imagine this would favour the smaller companies, because good work rarely comes from large, committee-style decisions.

          Wake me up when this happens... but I won't be holding my breath. :)

    • Re:yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)

      by evbergen ( 31483 )
      The free-riding problem *cannot be solved* with digital information.

      Companies only have their distribution mechanisms for digital information to compete with. If a CD distributor doesn't perform as well in the bandwith*convenience/price arena as your local ISP/telco, then it's a matter of *tough luck*, at least in a free market.

      Oh, you want to publish something to some but keep it secret to others who haven't paid? You want to tell someone a secret but you want to guarantee, beforehand, that he cannot possibly tell another? *Tough luck*, unless you tell the secret and then rip out the other person's tongue and chop off his hands prevent him from further communicating with anybody else. The only way to make that happen digitally is to make every PC a read-only device. Oh, that's what you want then? But we already have that, you dumbf'ck, it's called TV. We don't want TV. We're sick of TV, and we won't allow our computers to be replaced by TVs just because some industry paid f'ck said so. Get over it.

      RIAA, MPAA: the game is *over*. Cope. Please take your whining elsewhere, and please stop abusing society by buying f'cking laws.

      When no good music gets recorded, no good books get written, no good movies get produced and no good paintings are being made anymore because the artists are starving, I'm sure society can come up with a *better* solution than simply handcuffing all its inhabitants, don't you think?

      I'd say if you want to publish something digitally, you'll just have to live with the initial payment. If that's not enough, convince more people to pay before publishing it. If not enough people want to do so, then *tough luck*. If they do, all the better. It's still a free market after all, only one where the public is a *single* customer. If that customer wants to buy something valuable, he may have to make some savings up front. The concept is not even new, it already works fine for public highways. Society wants them, because society as a whole benefits from them, so society decides to pay for them as a whole. What's so f'cking hard about that?
      • No offense, but I think the game is a long way from over. IF the computer industry and the entertainment industry agree to help one another, we could very well end up with crippled computers. Personally, I think the computer indutry has a better future in computers rather than media distribution devices, and they probably see that too.

        I more or less agree with everything else you said though.

      • Oh, you want to publish something to some but keep it secret to others who haven't paid? You want to tell someone a secret but you want to guarantee, beforehand, that he cannot possibly tell another?

        i like how you link publishing / not publishing to asking someone to keep a 'secret'.

        in my personal life i have recently realised that it is wrong to tell someone something and ask them to keep it a secret, or to ask them to keep the information hidden from certain other ppl - it is entirely their perogative once they have received that information as to what to do with it. if you want to keep some information unknown then the only way to do that is to tell nobody - if you tell even one person then you should accept that potentially the whole world can know, and that there are no grounds for you to be upset if this happens as you are the person who originally released the information

        this situation is exactly the same with publishing - once you release something to the world by publishing it, then potentially the whole world now has accesss to it and it is morally wrong for you to try to limit the access.

        perhaps it is ok for you to request acknowledgement for the work, but it is not ok to try to create artificial barriers (society based laws) to force 'payment' for your work. ppl who license their software under the gpl accept this. i see no difference for 'creative' artists

        the only right you have to control access to your 'creative' work is the right to not release or publish it in the first place - either everyone has access to it or no-one does. any concerns for 'payment' are entirely subservient to the moral right of free information transmission

        • The thing is, you can *request* anything, even for someone to keep a secret. But you're simply unable to *force* someone to keep a secret, with zero risk that it will leak, unless you exercise some drastic methods of aforementioned type (maim or isolate the person). But it's exactly that kind of methods that the content cartel want to impose on us, only in a digital sense. It demands from society that it applies that kind of methods to its citizens. And sadly, society thinks the short term economical benefits (money in campaign warchest! Cheap DVDs! Jobs provided by the RIAA members! Great!) are worth it.

          It's a sad, sad, *sad* story.
  • Why write an article the starts out meaty with the faux FBI arrest, but then continues to admit that his "arguments" are as of yet well formed.

    The article ends up malformed as well, jumping all over the place. It's not news really, just re-hashed stuff, mixed in a little bit with the Popular Science genre.

    Really, I'd expect much more from the Economist.
    Gee, should we really force electronics makers to build chips that are easier to tinker with? Hell0! These things are etched into silicon. That's how they got so fast.

    Somebody had a deadline to reach, but they spent to much time catching up on Eastenders. [bbc.co.uk]

    • Gee, should we really force electronics makers to build chips that are easier to tinker with?

      Nobody is advocating this. The issue is whether it's their own responsibility to make stuff difficult to tinker with, instead of getting the courts to pick up the pieces when they fail.

      Hell0!

      Huh? And you say the Economist article jumps all over the place?

  • Ten years, from now, I wonder if by openning up my power supply to lower the fan speed, I not only void my warranty, but also end up in prison for not agreeing to my power supply EULA...

    It also almost seems like the Clockwork Orange might be coming to the computer... a world where not only is distributing mp3s illegal, but where it is indeed impossible.

    These though are pretty hyperbolic, extreme scenarios (chuckle, not on slashdot!). Media companies and the like do have real piracy problems. CD sales have been flat for a while and recently I believe was one of the first years of noticeable decline (though linking this directly to mp3 piracy and not to rougher economic times isn't proven). A dynamic, productive capitalist society requires enforceable contracts, but also the absence of bizarre and overly onerous laws, rules and regulations.

    Somewhere there's a balance between forced open sourced Windows with Napster for all on dedicated DS3 lines and an overly patented and EULAized world where you have to push an 'accept' button to get toast out of the toaster. I hope we can get there.

    • Re:*ponder jail time for openning power supply up* (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It also almost seems like the Clockwork Orange might be coming to the computer... a world where not only is distributing mp3s illegal, but where it is indeed impossible.

      So that's what that movie was about! I watched it 3 times, sober, stoned and drunk and was unable surmise a plot from it each time.
    • though linking this directly to mp3 piracy and not to rougher economic times isn't proven

      I have heard that things like CDs aren't affected (much) by the rougher economic times. Infact that sales go up - people cut back on expensive things but still want to treat themselves. Sales of beer are another example I think.

      Maybe the flatlining of sales have more to do with content (there's nothing new I want to buy) than piracy.

  • Copy-protection systems usually come with proprietary software that is hidden or cannot be altered--something that no self-respecting open-source hacker would integrate into a program.
    One of the few places in the mainstream media where "hacker" is used away of the context of computer criminals.
  • Felton gave a version of this talk at the recent
    USENIX Security Symposium.

    A few quotes/outline:

    "The freedom to tinker is the freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify technological devices that you own."

    Major points we (techies) need to communicate
    more clearly

    1. Tinkering is socially important
    2. Tinkering is economically efficient
    3. Tinkering doesn't conflict with "Intellectual Property."

    And of course "the DMCA should be repealed."

    More complete summary to appear in the upcoming
    security issue of ;login:

  • Check out Felton's Blog (Score:4, Informative)

    by jackjumper ( 307961 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @06:22AM (#4226688)
    at Freedom to Tinker [freedom-to-tinker.com]. Lots of interesting stuff...

  • Thoughts on the subject (Score:5, Informative)

    by Diabolical ( 2110 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @06:44AM (#4226761) Homepage
    All of the arguments given in the article is well known by many of the audience targeted by this article. However, most of them allready discarded the idea. A company isn't interested in someone improving on their products. They want to be the only one owning all rights to that device or software because that's how they make their money. They aren't concerned with cultural or social implications. That's not their issue. They want to secure as much marketshare as possible before some new technology becomes available that could replace their product.

    What would be an issue though is that increasingly, corporations seek out the help of their paid representatives to get their agenda legalised. And that's where law should stop. It should not be a responsibility of lawmakers to protect large corporations. They should invent or create other ways, within legal boundaries of course, to protect their income. Laws should be made to protect the individual as much as possible against not only other individuals as well as against organisations who are just planning to seperate ones money from ones wallet.

    It is not just the US who has these issues at hand. The European Union as well, is facing these same problems. Lots of /. people who aren't US based believe these issues are only a problem in the US. Well.. it's not. The EU has shown time after time they are very capable of making the same mistakes as the US government does. Wether it is because they so fondly want to shape another worldpower or that they are too lazy to come up with decent laws and rules i'll leave in the eye of the beholder.

    Fact is we must react quickly on these kind of issues before even that right has been removed from us. Not just in the US but in the entire world.
    • "A company isn't interested in someone improving on their products. They want to be the only one owning all rights to that device or software because that's how they make their money. They aren't concerned with cultural or social implications. That's not their issue. They want to secure as much marketshare as possible before some new technology becomes available that could replace their product."

      Some companies, I hope, will see that without tinkering, the technology that they own all the rights to will stagnate and be replaced more quickly. Some companies understand that it isn't always about getting the biggest piece of pie, sometimes it is about making the pie bigger.

      Of course you are right that MOST of the target audience will have disregarded this arguement, but perhaps not all. And perhaps lawmakers will read it to. Lawmakers are usually pretty short-term planners, but perhaps some will see that the loss of tinkering would handcuff American technology. I tend to think that India, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, and Indonesia are not about to swallow the Palladium pill. Via may ship a crippled PC to the US, but they will have a full function version for everywhere else and there won't be anything the RIAA or DMCA can do about it. Dell and IBM and Oracle, etc. won't take that lying down.

  • Am I a member? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 )
    Are you a member of the EFF yet?

    I'm waiting until they start giving Wil Wheaton figurines with every 100 dollar or greater donation.

    I'm also waiting on getting an inflatable Love-Gnu for when I donate 100 or more dollars to the Free Software Foundation.

    I think I'll be waiting a while on those, so I might have to go commercial and purchase a Nullsoft Love Llama for the time being.

    Shame.

  • I was a member of the EFF at one time, but I find that my own political philosophy has diverged from theirs to the point where I can no longer support them.

    I am, however, supportive of the "freedom to tinker", and am always on the hunt for examples of fair-use advocacy that doesn't require on to buy into blanket leftist ideology.

    Any suggestions?

  • "Tinker?" - Clever Terminology (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sessamoid ( 165542 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @07:20AM (#4226910)
    I was impressed with Felton's use of the word "tinker" when in the /. community, such activity would clearly be known as "hacking." It has the same meaning, but not the same negative connotation to the mainstream. This way he still manages to get the point across without distorting the original intent. If you go through the article and replace the word "tinker" with the word "hack," it doesn't alter the meaning of the article at all. And clearly The Economist is on the "tinkerers" side in going along with the change in terminology.
  • Just look around - more and more things
    are above normal person's ability to "tinker"
    or repair it. There was RS-232. It was easy
    and convenient. Everyone could make an add-on
    for the PC to do some task, using RS-232.
    Search the net - there are hundreds of home
    built devices that use this simple interface.
    Now we have USB. Faster, more features. But it
    is very hard to implement. Was it really
    necessary to do it in such complicated way ?
    I don't think so. I think there was an intention
    to make the interface that only large companies
    would be able to use.
    Remember the story of PC. IBM made a very simple
    device, everybody could do the same. That device
    has been built using very strict and open standards.
    For example, there was a completely documented
    hardware CGA/EGA interface. Now we have dozens
    of different SVGAs and no standard at all.
    We should rely on vendor's device drivers.
    Linux suffered from such politics a lot.
    There was a word 'engineer' - someone who can
    invent or construct different things -
    machines, cars, devices, tools. The key point is that they are different things. Nowaday's 'engineers'
    can built something very special - typically one
    part of a machine. One particular kind of software.
    When there is not exist one human or small group
    of people who can observe and discuss the whole
    information in some area, the progress in that
    area stops. The classic idea of invention came to its end now. Corporation can not invent anything, but only human brain can.

    • I have to point out that USB isn't so hard to implement that it's not done... *someone* wrote the software for my wireless mouse (or specifically, someone at Microsoft wrote the DirectInput USB interface, and someone in the wild OpenSource ether wrote a USB driver for Linux).

      The increasing complexity of computers requires increasing specialization, since one person is no longer able to manage an entire project that may balloon to 800k lines of code. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable, since the march of technology demands more complex applications, and more complex applications demand faster technology.

      And finally, the word 'engineer' is as much of a catch-all as 'doctor'. I sure as heck wouldn't go to a podiatrist for cranial surgery, even if said podiatrist has some idea of what constitutes cranial surgery - a specialist is assumed to be better. Similarly, I may have a conception of the fundamentals of structural engineering, but you'd be better off hiring me to do software engineering - in fact, you'd be best off hiring me for my specific specialties within software engineering. It's not that I couldn't maintain your legacy FORTRAN database code, but there are people who could do it much faster and better than me. Specialization is a direct result of an increased population size.

  • Felton and spam (Score:2, Informative)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 )
    If you go over to the Spamcop newgroups (www.spamcop.net [spamcop.net] and search for Felton, you will see that he is not always on the side of the angels.

    He started a silly rant about how Spamcop "shut down his web site" because they assert he is a spammer. Which is completely false. Rather than repeating it all here, I suggest you go read it yourself - Here's the relevant archive month [spamcop.net] on Spamcop - unfortunately their search system sucks.

  • Why should I join? Seriously? What have they done lately?
  • No such thing as a freedom to tinker. I was arrested for trying to tinker in an alley a few weeks ago.
  • Over the last two weeks a landmark crisis emerged between KDE and RedHat over GPL. The KDE team is probably the largest open source product, and has decided to ignore the FSF/GNU principles that true freedom explicitly means the freedom of NOT having to ask permission to change an open source GPL product and distribute it. In short, the KDE team is demanding "artistic control" and the right to censor the changes made by RedHat.

    The FSF failed horribly by allowing this public debate to continue, rather than stepping in promptly and strongly affirming it's principles that free software, especially that lincensed under GPL, does not include the right of censorship that the KDE team is demanding.

    While a large percentage of the open source community have open contempt for corporate America, and the growing contempt for and bashing of RedHat has grown beyound a friendly sport, this one issue/event may well be the turning point that forces corporate America to abandon the open source movement.

    The bashing of RedHat by KDE over this issue is pure hypocrisy - freedom under GPL was supposed to be freedom for everyone, including corporate America. The FSF/GNU camp failed the movement over the last couple weeks by refusing to openly and agressively defend it's core principles. The KDE team failed the open source movement, by abandoning the core principle of the GPL, and using it's size and stature in the open source community to start what might well be the last debate of a failed ideal.

    Power corrupts, and what we are watching unfold, is that the absolute power being demanding by the KDE team, is almost certainly going to corrupt the open source movement and GPL community absolutely as other ego's seek to grab their share of this new power.

    Monday, at dawn I sent a written email request to gnu@gnu.org specifically asking three questions. There has been no answer, which is chilling.

    1) From this sites web page, the free software definition includes the specific liberty of NOT having to ask permission to make changes and distribute them. Is the KDE team rightfully acting in the spirit of free software and the GPL licenses by demanding this contract term be ignored and RedHat abandon distribution of modified KDE software?

    2) Does the FSF/GNU consider the forking of KDE a legal or moral violation of GPL?

    3) Are the KDE teams actions regarding this issue, of publicly attacking RedHat for violating their artistic rights to control KDE's evolution consistant with the position of the FSF and GPL licensing?

    For those that have missed the quiet war, please check out http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News& file=article&sid=202 [linuxandmain.com] and http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News& file=article&sid=203 [linuxandmain.com].

    I strongly urge everyone that placed their hopes on FSF/GPL to protect one core right to tinker to let gnu@gnu.org know that they MUST defend the principles they stand for, or watch THEIR movement fail as corporate America (nay that of the world) drop open source and GPL lest they be the next target of corporate bashing.
    • Did you miss a link or something? I looked at both of the links you posted and I couldn't find any sign that the KDE developers had changed the KDE license nor where they (as a group) had demanded anything. Sure some of the KDE folks don't like some of the changes RH has made but so what? Those developers are entitled to their opinion and RH is within their rights to change their version of KDE however they see fit, even if some of the changes are dumb. Please explain why the FSF should get involved.
      • Because the outright public forum blackmail tactic being used by a sub-group inside KDE to demand artistic rights here smacks clearly in the face of gpl freedoms. If the discusion had stayed inside the KDE developer channels [kde.org] that's fine ... they can work on policy issues there. What appears to be happening here is both the main stream KDE developers and FSF/GNU standing idly by while the very vocal group uses some very unethical means to blackmail RedHat into changing it's position.

        If KDE isn't willing to take a firm stand on THEIR image, and FSF isn't either, then these noisy little power plays are going to be the poison pill that drives large corporate developers from adopting open source products in their platforms.

        The open source community as a whole needs to provide the peer presure that FREE is FREE, for everyone. Those that do not want to play by the GPL rules, clearly need some external presure to modify this childish behavior. In this case, the general distrust of corporate america seems to encourage a hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil response.

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