Re: Not "Satanism;" realism.

[stan johnson <sjohnson@gwi.net>]

** Reply to note from mstone@vc.net Sat, 2 Jan 1999 00:25:47 -0500 
 More to the point, it was IBM's failure to protect their intellectual 
 property (the PC architecture) that handed Microsoft the biggest 
 lucky break of the century. 
 
They tried, with the microchannel. That got them nowhere. If IBM   
*had* successfully "protected their intellectual property" this list would   
likely not exist, because very few people (clones not being available)   
would be able to afford computers.  
 
Granted, the persons who have the interest and capacity to contribute   
to society's knowledge (in which I would include software) are worthy   
of appropriate reward. (Which I feel, but not all do, includes   
non-monetary reward. For some, only money is of value.) But the   
overall advance of the society is not well served if that extends to   
extorting maximal wealth and retaining the knowledge as proprietary.   
The artist who exhibits his or her work, thus allowing others to learn   
from it and apply insights in their own work, contributes much more   
than the artist who locks his or her work up in a vault, keeping it   
'proprietary', so that no-one else can learn from it. 
 
And regardless of the wishes of would-be entrepreneurs, society is   
under no obligation to grant them a means by which they may profit at   
the cost of loss to the society as a whole. Someone else's desire to   
become affluent imposes no obligation on me to facilitate that aim.

-- 
Stan Johnson    TeamOS/2
sjohnson@gwi.net