[Fsfe-uk] Wired - Letter: Free Software Hurts U.S. ;-)

[Paul Mobbs]

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http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,55989,00.html?tw=wn_ascii


Letter: Free Software Hurts U.S.  

By Robert McMillan
WIRED, 02:00 AM Oct. 25, 2002 PDT


An attack on the software license behind the Linux operating system has 
stirred up a free software controversy in Washington.

Earlier this week, three members of the House of Representatives, Adam Smith 
(D-Wash.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Jim Davis (D-Fla.), sent a note to 74 
Democrats in Congress attacking Linux's GNU General Public License (GPL) as a 
threat to America's "innovation and security."

The note urged members to support a letter written by Reps. Tom Davis (R-Va.) 
and Jim Turner (D-Texas) to Richard Clarke, who heads the board in charge of 
hammering out U.S. cybersecurity policy. Davis and Turner's letter asks that 
the plan explicitly reject "licenses that would prevent or discourage 
commercial adoption of promising cybersecurity technologies developed through 
federal R&D."

There's only one problem.

Tom Davis and Jim Turner say their letter has absolutely nothing to do with 
open source or the GPL.

"The (Tom) Davis letter was not intended to address the open-source debate," 
Tom Davis spokesman Dave Marin said. "All this letter does is request that 
the status quo be maintained, so that we can maintain interest in federal 
R&D."

Smith, whose largest political contributor is Microsoft, has come under fire 
for his involvement in the controversy.

<SNIP>


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"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - address@hidden
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey.html
public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/keylist.html

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