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From: tower@PREP.AI.MIT.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Swedish copyright laws
Message-ID: <8612171607.AA09065@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 17-Dec-86 11:13:36 EST
Article-I.D.: EDDIE.8612171607.AA09065
Posted: Wed Dec 17 11:13:36 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 02:06:55 EST
Sender: daemon@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu
Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation, 1000 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA  02138, USA +1 (617) 876-3296
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This is a follow-up to the recent discussion of software ownership in
comp.emacs. 

* Preliminaries

** Disclaimer

This response is my own personal opinion, and does not represent the
view of Project GNU or the Free Software Foundation.

** Inappropriate for comp.emacs?

Many readers of the technical USENET group comp.emacs dislike having
non-technical discussion in this group.  People who wish to discuss
these issues at length, should probably move the discussion to another
newsgroup (e.g. talk.politics).

** Waste of my time?

I may rue this posting.  I have serious doubt that I will cause
anyone's opinion to change, or even encourage the competitors to
carefully examine the cooperators side.  Most of the cooperators have
most carefully examined the competitors side (its almost impossible
to be educated in the US and not get a full dose of the competitors'
reasoning).

* Rationale

My stomach has clenched up once too often at the flaming that comes up
about GNU on comp.emacs.  It's (in the MIT idiom) losing.  It's based
on misconceptions, misunderstanding, and knee-jerk reactions.

My goal is to encourage more reasonable examination of the issues.

* Bias, backgrounds, and mis-understanding

Many of the people who are flaming or more rationally disagreeing with
rms haven't read many of his earlier postings about his beliefs.  They
are making many false assumptions about his beliefs.  I suspect none
of them have read the GNU Manifesto.  (It's in the GNU Emacs
distribution as EMACSDIR/etc/GNU ["C-h C-n C-x C-v G N U RET" will
read it into a buffer].  I be willing to mail copies of the GNU
Manifesto to those who don't have access to GNU Emacs.)  It's not a
perfect answer to the problems involved in liberating software, but
its a very large significant step down the road.

I advise people to read rms's words carefully, and not let their
backgrounds mis-interpret the words or insert thoughts that aren't
there.

* More background reading

The following books are recommended reading for all competitors who
wish to know their enemy, the cooperators, better.  They are also good
reading for competitors who want to give the other side a fair
hearing.

** No Contest, The Case Against Competition

Sub-titled: Why we lose in our race to win.
by Alfie Kohn, 1986, published by Houghton Mifflin, Co., Boston, MA.
ISBN 0-395-39387-6

This book shows why competition is wrong.  It is extensively footnoted
and has a comprehensive bibliography.  Mr. Kohn notes many of the
academic studies done on competition and cooperation.  He also
effectively refutes all the usual arguments and justifications used to
support competition.  His definition of competition is: Mutually
Exclusive Goal Attainment, which is a bit narrower than the common
usage.

** Honest Business

Sub-titled: A Superior Strategy for Starting and Managing Your Own Business.
by Michael Phillips and Salli Rasberry, 1981, published by Clear Glass
Publishing Company, San Francisco, and Random House, New York.
ISBN 0-394-51779-2, ISBN 0-394-74830-1 (paperback)

This book shows how to openly and cooperatively run a successful
business without Mutually Exclusive Goal Attainment.  It also defines
the kind of personality that is needed to successfully run a business,
and has may helpful tactics on succeeding in business.

** The Evolution of Cooperation

by Robert Axelrod, 1984, published by Basic Books, Inc., New York.
ISBN 0-465-02122-0 ISBN 0-465-02121-2 (paperback)

A scholarly study that examines how cooperation works, and how it
succeeds even in competitive environments.  A summary of this book
(from K. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation) is that to encourage
cooperative behavior one must be nice, retaliatory, AND forgiving
(all at the same time!).

* Comments on previous postings

** USSR /= cooperation

Russia is not a cooperative society (though I suspect a lot of
cooperation is used by its citizens to survive there).  It's not even
a socialist one.  There are many examples of cooperative societies, the
Kibbutz's in Israel being one.  What are termed communist countries
today are quite different than what Marx conceived them to be.  (Note
that I am not speaking for or against Marx here.)

** Even competitors use cooperative behavior

They cooperate by using a common tongue.  Obeying red lights.  Walking
and driving on the proper side of the way.  

When anyone doesn't follow these accepted cooperative behaviors, the
rest of us know they are wrong, and often we have codified this
wrongness into law, making the un-cooperative behavior a crime.  One
of the goals of GNU is to get people to wake up to the fact that
software hoarding is anti-coopeerative and wrong the same way.

* End

(whew ... ;-}  )  I could get into a detailed blow-by-blow rebuttal of
the previous postings, but I want to get back to helping GNU and the
other society building activities I'm involved in, cooperatively.

Hoping I have encouraged a more thorough examination of the
cooperative alternative by you competitors.


Len Tower

ORGANIZATION: Project GNU of the Free Software Foundation
	   1000 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA  02138, USA +1 (617) 876-3296
HOME: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA  02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739
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