quotes category archive

‘Then They Fight You’

Busy week here with a funeral in Thief River Falls and a sick baby upon returning home, so please forgive one of those less-value-added posts where I just point to someone else who has more interesting things to offer.

Tim Lee over at The Technology Liberation Front often has great things to say for software freedom and against software patents. Writing yesterday about the Microsoft/Novell deal and subsequent Steve Ballmer chest-thumping:

I think this is a case where language has become a serious impediment to clear thinking about these issues. When Ballmer says that Linux “uses our patented intellectual property,” he almost certainly does not mean that Linux is in any way derived from Microsoft products, or that the people making Linux have somehow been free-riding off of

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Free Tanks for Everyone! Good Gas Mileage.

Originally published in Free Software Magazine, 6 November 2006.

I’m guessing many FSM readers will recognize the title reference, if like me you’re a fan of Neal Stephenson’s work. If you’re not a fan, then… er… how could you not be?! I’m kidding. I realize tastes differ, but to me, Stephenson is essential geek reading.

His essay, In the Beginning was the Command Line, has been around for several years now. It’s showing some age in areas, but it reads as well today as it did back in 1999. It’s filled with interesting ideas and thoughts about technology and culture, including free software. For example, you don’t have to read very far …

Thomas Jefferson on Patents and Freedom of Ideas

Started reading Unbounded Freedom and ran in to a great excerpt from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson in 1813 about the nature of ideas. It’s not the first time I’ve run across it, and like my Ben Franklin quote it has seen a lot of use in patent discussions, but it’s the kind of thing I think needs to be found on movingtofreedom.org. Looking at more of the letter:

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be

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Ben Franklin on Patents; in which he provides a Selfless model for Sharing and Cooperation; Inspires us with his Generosity; and Lends Moral Authority to the Principles of Free Culture…

I’m still reading Franklin’s autobiography and wasn’t surprised to learn of his position on patents. I right away wanted to post the blurb here for the world to see, although a Google search quickly revealed that this is an often-quoted passage:

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who,

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