“Letter from 2020″: Logical conclusion of current IP trends
from the garden-of-pure-ideology dept.
Found on Slashdot: A not-so-fantastic extrapolation of current IP trends called "Letter From 2020" by Mark Summerfield. "The saddest subversive I met claimed to be a programmer. He said that he was writing a program using Basic.NET. He must have been insane. Even if his program worked he wouldn't be allowed to run it. How could one person possibly check every possible patent infringement in a program they wrote? And even if he hadn't infringed he couldn't sell it without buying a compatibility license from Microsoft.NET and who could possibly afford that?"
September 18th, 2000 at 11:34 PM
Open Source
Long live open source.
September 19th, 2000 at 7:27 PM
A bit extreme
I smell a dystopia here. I can understand that, for some people, this kind of writing can be eye opening, but it is in no way based on reality. The logistics of a corporation pulling this kind of thing off are pretty astronomical, considering how many of us are in opposition. I don't remember where I read this, but it goes something like this:
Laws regulate men
Men can't be regulated
Laws don't affect men
Not very gender friendly, but you get the idea.
Anyway, the point is that if people have to make decisions for themselves. In other words, if enough people break a law, then it isn't worth anything anymore. Many laws are like that today. In the future, more laws will be ignored as the Government strives to educate the masses (even with their biased views). Just wait till the educated masses refuse to follow a law. Try putting over 50% of the country in jail. I think that there are enough people out there who, if faced with the described situation, would be among the subversives that the corproations couldn't hold power. But then, since Subverse.NET has patents on these ideas, I guess I'm already in trouble.