Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: Slavery???

[Peter Conrad]

Hi Tom,

you've said a few things before with which I completely disagree. This time
I'm saying so. :-)

On Sat, Nov 22, 2003 at 09:55:50PM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:
> 
> On the contrary, your
> "right to contract" exists _only_ as social construction, at least
> insofar as _enforcement_ is fundamental to contract.

This is wrong: most contracts work very well without enforcement, and
most would even work without the possibility of enforcement. That's
because a contract usually is a win-win situation for the involved
parties (if it wasn't, why should the losing party agree to the
contract?) [1].

> Your "right to contract" is not some a priori element of nature --
> some personal liberty granted by a creative force -- which can be
> modified only by constructing restrictions.
> All but one of the GPL software freedoms (to run, copy, modify, and
> distribute -- but not to obtain source), in contrast, _are_ a priori
> elements of nature.

Unless the term "element of nature" has some specific meaning in US law
that I fail to understand, your claims seem totally at will and are
completely unfounded. What makes running software more natural than
a mutual agreement between two parties?

Bye,
        Peter

[1] "The Evolution of Cooperation"; Robert Axelrod; Basic Books; 1984

-- 
Peter Conrad                        Tel: +49 6102 / 80 99 072
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