On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 03:36:35AM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 3/22/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan / googlemail.com> wrote:
> >Kyle Schmitt wrote:
> >> OK guys, stop jumping down my throat for using the common term for
> >> something.
> >>
> >> Legally is it theft?  Maybe not, but commonly it is referred to as such.
> >>
> >> He did ask for something illicit, knowing full well it was illegal.
> >> Why was the use of one word in a response diverting all focus from the
> >> original intent of the post?
> >Because programmers thrive on exact language, and exact meanings of
> >terms, maybe? ESR has written some interesting stuff about that.
> 
> Nah. It's a bikeshed to the nuclear power plant of intellectual
> property discussions in general.

Speaking solely for myself here . . .

Since I have an (admittedly non-mainstream) interpretation of the ethics
of "intellectual property" (note scare-quotes) that is decidedly not on
the side of counting it as "theft", I find that simply distinguishing
between theft and copyright infringement is the best compromise I can
generally come up with between ignoring the subject because it's
off-topic and refusing to let a bit of FUD go unchallenged.  I don't
like to let such FUD go unchallenged, of course, because unchallenged it
becomes a meme, and propagates.  Not my idea of fun.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham