Subject: Re: Current mailbombing is instigated by FSF

From: Alessandro Vesely <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:38:06 +0100

TSG wrote:
> The creation of a standard *** should *** have 
> nothing to do with IP rights or licensing. The creation of any standard 
> should JUST be based on whether proper vetting happened and whether the 
> minimum number of ports was created and formally tested for 
> interoperability. Anyone - and I mean ANYONE should be able to get a 
> Standard by making the steps happen.

May I ask what would such Standards be useful for? In particular, 
since the IETF is committed to making *Internet* Standards, I wonder 
why private standards should be developed within the IETF rather than 
more general organizations such as, e.g., the ISO.

The term "private standards" is used above to mean norms or 
requirements whose use is restricted to individuals or organizations 
that have entered a specific agreement with the rights holders. The 
Internet is totally extraneous to that kind of operations, and 
historical evidence suggests that it would never have emerged 
otherwise. Current ISOC initiatives for Internet access mention that

   Regulatory impediments to internetworking, onerous licensing
   requirements and other regulatory and policy factors can slow
   or prevent Internet growth.
   http://www.isoc.org/isoc/mission/initiative/access.shtml

Using the Internet is not mandatory: it's free. If you don't like it, 
you may just keep clear of it.

---

From: "Dave Nelson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 08:17:22 -0500

Alessandro Vesely writes...

> Using the Internet is not mandatory: it's free.

Well, that's just plain silly.  Does your ISP not charge for access?  Mine,
Comcast, charges me over $50 US per month.  The Internet should be available
to all, but it cannot be truly free, as the fabric of the Internet cost real
money.

I think that free software is a wonderful thing.  I also think that if *all*
software were free, then only hobbyists would be writing software and we
wouldn't have so much high quality free software available.  In order to
keep the software craft going, some of us have to be able to make a living
plying that craft.