reading some of the /. commentary on the SCO letter to legislators made me realise something. Sun, Microsoft and SCO are not the only people who would like to see
Linux and pretty much all of the Open Source Movement just dry up and blow away
there exists a confluence of interests that could very well lead to a nightmarish scenario where Open Source might not be technically illegal but would be impossible to use without breaking several laws.
As in it might be legal to create it, and even disseminate it (in source form) but not legal to compile it or run it on a computer connected to the internet.
To some extent most of us already live in a world where at least some of the software we interact with daily is effectively beyond our purview (try fiddling with some of the software on your mobile phone or your cable box and you are committing a federal crime (never mind that in either case the only conceivable reason for doing so is theft)) but what if
'They' got a law passed that required all networked computers to pass certain standards
and that one 'standard' required a watchdog daemon that would authenticate connections
and yell if it saw something unkosher (to prevent 'piracy' and 'terrorism' no doubt).
What can we do to forestall such legislation?
How do we even recognize it for what it is?
--
Metaphors for system administration -----------------------------------------------
bailing the titanic with paper cups: or polishing the deck chairs thereof
steering an iceberg with a broom: nonexciting challenges await you
capturing runaway bulldozers: once is chance, twice coincidence, ...
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