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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (54616)	6/17/2003 2:46:56 AM
From: QwikSand	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

The banning of commercial use of freeware (or shareware) through the legislative process would be akin to the efforts in the pharmeceutical industry to regulate the production and distribution of generics. That's a pretty intense assertion. It sounds more to me like Coke and Pepsi teaming up to outlaw Royal Crown. Leave aside for the moment the fact that some amount of proprietary code has found its way into Linux and other Open Source programs. I have no doubt that's true, but I do doubt that it's important enough to warrant legislative action for two reasons. First, I don't know how much of such code is being illegally distributed. Probably no one does. But what if, as I suspect, it's not very much? Second, whatever the amount, there's already existing law to handle cases where it can be demonstrated that stolen code is being distributed. A new law wouldn't be needed for the (probably) small number of provable cases. If stolen code isn't the reason for the law, what is? Reverse engineering is also already covered by plenty of case law (I'm not a lawyer, but I've been around long enough to see a lot of cases go by in the media). Again, I'm no lawyer, but as far as I know, drugs are protected against generics for the most part by patents, not regulation. If you were referring to the Hatch-Waxman act, that was mostly an enabler for generics that also dealt with some fast maneuvers the drug companies were pulling with extra patents to keep generics off the market longer. Maybe you're referring to other regulations I don't know about. If the legislation you propose is motivated by patent or copyright infringement, again there's already enough law on the books. If Open Source software violates existing laws, appropriate action should be taken by injured parties or the government. But I don't see the rationale for new law. You can't make it against the law just to give something away. Regards, --QS

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (54616)	6/17/2003 4:09:53 AM
From: Dinesh	Respond to of 64865

<deleted> Cheryl I see your point and wish to respectfully remain in disagreement. Giving it away for free should be permitted as long as anyone else's rights are not trampled in that process. Here we are in different camps. Lets focus back on Sun. Actually, Sun stock. Regards -d