On Tuesday 03 February 2004 22:17, Shlomi Fish wrote: > Well, I'm hazy on Government support of free software. For once, I am a > supporter of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (let's not start another flamewar on > this), and think a government has no place to intervene with the market. > (and open source is better off without government support). [...]
I'd agree except for one thing. IMHO, one of the biggest current dangers to FOSS (worldwide) is existing and future laws (even if passed locally). Some random scenarios that spring to mind: - An SSSCA-class law - A widely used hardware DRM from MS with DMCA-like laws forbidding usage of other OSs on it - A software patent war leaving only a few major corporations being able to write and sell software without paying rent - esp. if European software patents are legalized - GPL being stricken down in a court (seems very unlikely) And a good defence against such scenarios, in addition of course to lobbying etc., is to have governments using FOSS. Because of that, I don't oppose laws requiring or recommending the use of FOSS. Governments that pass them and use FOSS are far less likely to outlaw it later on. So, fighting fire with fire, simlpy because I don't trust my future government (not to mention other nations') not to pass such laws. -- Dan Armak Matan, Israel Public GPG key: http://dev.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key Fingerprint: DD70 DBF9 E3D4 6CB9 2FDD 0069 508D 9143 8D5F 8951
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