

FSF Opposes More Copyright Enforcement in Joint Strategic Plan - alexkay
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-opposes-more-copyright-enforcement-in-joint-strategic-plan

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alain94040
_we believe: it is unethical for government to enforce proprietary software
licenses, which prohibit people from sharing with each other_

That's a little bit extreme to me.

Overall, the letter is not _that_ convincing. They highlight the fact that
with free software, costs go down because you don't need to track how many
licenses you are using. True. But on the other hand, you need to track the
modifications you make and make sure you follow the redistribution
requirements. So honestly, it's a wash: either way, you need to dedicate
resources to enforcing the terms of the license.

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natrius
The government doesn't do a lot of external redistribution of software that I
know of, besides things like VistA[1], which is free software itself. For the
vast majority of the software the government uses, the license enforcement
costs would be zero. For the rest, the cost would be less than the
corresponding proprietary application.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistA>

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KC8ZKF
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/intellectualproperty/>

U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Email:
intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov

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ciupicri
> Elsewhere, substantial deployments have been carried out in Brazil, Germany,
> Spain, France, Czechoslovakia, and Macedonia

On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia. [1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia>

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adamdecaf
Brilliantly written letter, it really summarizes what free software is all
about and why it's a better solution than proprietary software.

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alsomike
But why can't free software compete without the government mandating it's use?
Without licensing costs, it should have an advantage. The answer is that free
software is often unresponsive to user's needs, and telling users to scratch
their own itch is an example of that. Open source has achieved huge success
among developers, because as a community of developers, they deeply understand
those needs. It's been much less successful at developing products for non-
technical users because it doesn't understand them, and has no strong
incentives to try.

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tome
Another reason is that "Free Software" doesn't have deep pockets to lobby
government with.

