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To: James Connolly who wrote (9717)	5/25/2001 10:53:08 PM
From: Allen Benn	Respond to of 10309

James, thanks for the link to Richard Stallman’s stated intent behind GPL. Whatever technical arguments can be made for how IP might be preserved, as even Lineo agrees is necessary for business reasons, the intent behind the license is clear, and should be anathema to any company with valuable IP. The Free Software Movement was founded in 1984, but its inspiration comes from the ideals of 1776: freedom, community, and voluntary cooperation. This is what leads to free enterprise, to free speech, and to free software. The Declaration of Independence was not about freedom, community, and voluntary cooperation. The Declaration spoke of certain unalienable Rights, held to be self-evident, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – and to secure these rights Governments are instituted that derive their (limited) powers from the governed, and can be rightfully overturned if they abuse the powers granted. It is pretty clear what the framers meant’ by Life and Liberty, but Pursuit of Happiness was a euphemism for the right to pursue happiness as we think best, as long as we respect the right of others to do likewise. Drawing on common law tradition of the time, these unalienable rights implied liberty, property and contracts – not exactly what Stallman would like to hear. When the framers finally delineated a Bill of Rights in the form of amendments attached to the Constitution, which provides a framework for a government they thought would protect unalienable rights, the fifth Amendment spells out one such right as: “…., nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” However much Stallman would like to think the framers were a bunch of hippies committed to freedom of everything, they very much regarded property – all sorts of property, including IP -- as an unalienable right. I have no idea what gave Stallman the belief the framers cared a whit for community and voluntary cooperation. The framers viewed governments as a necessary evil that should be kept subservient to the governed, enabling citizens to own and enjoy their property along with other liberties like free speech, and no doubt the freedom not to volunteer for communities wrongly modeled on the Declaration of Independence. Allen