Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!PREP.AI.MIT.EDU!tower 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 Lines: 133 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 UUCP: {}!mit-eddie!mit-prep!tower INTERNET: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu