Breakfast with a presidential candidate

[Bruce Dawson]

On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 10:08, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
> *wades in with more than a little trepidation*  Sorry, but I have to 
> disagree.  I think copyrights are all well and good -- really!  But I 
> think that, eventually, all copyrighted material should enter the public 
> domain.

I agree. And I think that's what was intended by the original laws.
However, congress is now sliding down the "slippery slope" of
perpetually extending the expiration period (along with adding more bad
stuff). It is now unreasonably long - to the point of endangering
innovation - companies won't need to innovate because they can rely on
the "old stuff" and the copyright laws to protect them.

Dark Ages; here we come!

> See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec02/copyright.html 

That's a very good link at describing the problem and consequences.
Thanks!

But are there any other issues? Like maybe:

        *  getting the government to open source all critical software?
        *  Require open source software audits on all voting systems?

Does anyone really care?

--Bruce
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