Thanks to Hugh for his objective report on the copyright2005 conference in Montreal.
RMS is certainly no stranger to open and harsh criticism, but calling him a “fascist leader” merely disqualifies the opponent.
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yeah the worst part was he represents Creative Commons. It was bizarre. He was one of these slick beatnick/hipster lawyer types with architect glasses (in Canada we have a term for guys like that, Torontonians!). I think he got rubbed the wrong way by RMS’s attack on recent decisions by CC, and then went into macho I-will-crush-the-witness-and-sway-the-jury mode, using all sorts of highschool debating rhetorical (and sophist) techniques of defining the debate around rms’s “ideological rhetoric” and rms himself. He really got rolling and went overboard.
Then, in my opinion, rms successfully cut him at the knees, and he seemed momentarily chastened … and very awkward-looking. But he came back on the attack later.
Again it was very disappointing to have the debate in such a fashion (and a bit off the topic of recent Canadian copyright laws!), since the core of the disagreement is VERY important to this copyright/patent/copyleft/freedom movement.
That is: which freedom MUST we defend all the time? CC seems to have dropped the ball, in rms’s view, and I would have liked to see a more reasoned debate about it. Having divisions in the movement is not a good thing, but again as rms if you start compromising on the base ethical/philosophical principles, well, you’re in trouble.
Comment by mackinaw — Tue 05 Jul. 2005 @ 07:07 pm
Right on, Hugh!
Though I haven’t been paying close enough attention to Lessig lately, I would be interested in hearing his reply to Stallman’s concerns with regard to the CC.
Comment by sennosen — Wed 06 Jul. 2005 @ 03:07 pm