Re: Is the proprietary camp winning ?

Chakkaradeep C C wrote:

 > Shocking News !!
 >
 > http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/10/BAGERLM3RR15.DTL

A very sad story indeed. The report says:

<quote>
Hans Reiser  was accused earlier this  year of failing  to pay medical
and child-care expenses...
</quote>

No father - much less a free software developer - would have the heart
to bear that.

Macaulay  had  spoken  strongly  in  favour  of  copyrights  (read  as
"proprietary software" for the purposes of this thread) and the entire
speech is available at :
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/25/1345/03329

The speech was made in the  House of Commons, when an attempt was made
to  increase  the  term of  copyrights  from  20  years from  date  of
publication of the  work to that much time after the  life time of the
author.  The bill was defeated then,  but the law at present is on the
lines  of the  then defeated  bill.  Some  of the  key points  made by
Macaulay in his speech are:

* Copyright is a form of tax - albeit very evil* but a *necessity*.
* Without copyrights,  authors would have to depend  on the government
  or others for support - which would only give room for more evil.

Macaulay  based  his arguments  upon  careful  reasoning and  forcible
examples - nothing much has changed today.

It may be fair and just to  have a clause in the license that *if* the
software is redistributed under any arrangement for money, 10% thereof
should be paid  as royalty to the author(s). ISPs  and others could be
asked to pay the authors and content  providers - it may be just a few
units of money or a fraction thereof per download or distribution, but
given  the volume, it  should yield  enough for  projects worth  it to
survive, keep going and flourish.

The proprietary camp should never be seen to be winning and smiling.

-Ramanraj K
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