What on Earth are you talking about? Does merely discussing free software in a positive light count as “pushing fanatically for decentralization?” What part of “free and proprietary software can peacefuly exist side by side” do you not understand?

Also, Tim, what does it tell you that the FSF would have to resort to community pressure to enforce the GPL. Who decides whats right Stallman and Moglen? You advocate the views of 3 people over American legal standards?

I’m skeptical of this new “social pressure” thing. Its a bit different from “market pressure” because usually a bunch of zealots have to paint the market as ineffective and unknowledgeable to make their point. For instance, Tim writes of users losing their freedom with DRM. That doesn’t seem to be stopping folks from buying the iPod nor songs from iTunes. Are these consumers suffering from loss of freedom now that they’vd bought the tech products of choice?

The GPL is a clever way to use the tools of copyright to subvert certain aspects of it, and I admire it in many ways, but its use is a distant 2nd best to a world without copyrights/patents.

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And Noel, obviously copyright is a more decentralized system than getting permission to write a song from the Creativity Clearing Council or something. It’s a LESS decentralized system than a world without copyright, though. This isn’t that hard.

The fundamental disagreement between libertarians and leftists has always been that libertarians are opposed to coercion principle, whereas liberals believe that virtuous ends justify coercive means (at least if it’s coercion against peoples’ property). If Moglen now believes that his left-wing ends can be achieved by non-coercive means, that simply means that he’s becoming a libertarian despite himself. We should welcome him into the libertarian tent and educate him about how non-coercion works in other areas of society, not reject him out of hand because some of his other beliefs are stupid.

Eric, yes, I do often take issue with stuff on TLF (not TLF in general, and I do appreciate some of the writers on here like Adam, Braden and Hance).

Since I’ve seen citations to work by me and my friends on TLF that I would call mischaracterizations, and the ensuing discussions ad hominem rants, I’ll come here to discuss the issues. There is probably little guidance or accountability from those informed about tech policy supporting some of the work I disagree with.

To call this communist is another in a line of irrational outbursts. Is this what it has come to? Hurling absurd epithets?

Some persons continue a perpetual commentary against TLF, and in some cases it is probably because no one is commenting at all on their own blogs. I figure they must be lonely. If the shoe fits…

I would even propose that collaboration should be considered pro-capitalistic and anti communist, not “DotCommunist kool-aid”. For example, I have been developing Microsoft Access database. The documentation provided by Microsoft is poor, Microsoft isn’t into providing support, and the learning curve is steep. To fill this void, a variety of websites have been established where users can share information to develop solutions on an interactive and collaborative basis. Many of the users, such as myself, are developing these databases to improve the operation of the companies that employ us. A few of the people may even be developing databases with the hope of selling (commercializing) them. This collaborative process fosters technological innovation, improves economic progress, and improves competition since it allows companies to develop solutions for less money.

I’ve followed folks like von Loehman and Moglen for several years. They’re talented guys, and their organizations have long been a part of the techn policy landscape. Still, neither EFF, nor even the FSF, are as left as TLF can be at times.

http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/dcm.html