Em Quinta 08 Janeiro 2004 19:28, vocĂȘ escreveu:
I don't belive that for a second, take patents for example. You can't implement an MP3 player that is Free Software without violating a patent, making it essentially illegal.
oh man... theory is a nice thing... but remember that hollywood studios could not avoid decss being spread all over the world. And if you are capable of playing DVD on your GNU/Linux box, you should thank little Jon. We know he did something wrong (not actually from his country law, only americam law), but I think he did a VERY GOOD thing, because he enabled thousands of people to watch movies on their computers. These rules works on court, but the internet has another rules. Is it hard to understand this? If it is legal, it will be free software, if not, they will call it piracy, but it will still exist. You can sue one guy, but can you sue the entire world? What is the point of being illegal? In another example, reverse engineering was a normal learning process for hackers, now everybody keeps doing the same thing, but just don't tells that does. I don't know one hacker that at some point of his life does not reverse engineered some proprietary software, just to see how it works, or to have more balls at his pinball game. The "underground" will always exist, and the internet will guarantee it's existence. For each software protection created, 10 minutes later a new crack is created. I'm NOT discussing if piracy is write or wrong. I'm just saying that it exists for one reason: "People want access to information!". Here in Brazil, a music CD is about 12 dollars. This is VERY expensive for our country. There are pirate CDs being sold for 1.5 dollars, a lot more affordable for poor people. Who have money buy the original, who don't, buy the piracy. If capitalism cannot solve digital exclusion, maybe piracy (and free software) can.
[]s, gandhi