Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Bernie Galler, relevant as ever

Over at GNU's Philosophy Section, I just noticed the addition of a quote from Bernie Galler, excerpted from "a letter to the editor of the Communications of the ACM (vol.3, no.4, pp.A12-A13), saying in part (mentioning price, but clearly implying freedom):"
... it is clear that what is being charged for is the development of the program, and while I am particularly unhappy that it comes from a university, I believe it is damaging to the whole profession. There isn't a 704 installation that hasn't directly benefited from the free exchange of programs made possible by the distribution facilities of SHARE. If we start to sell our programs, this will set very undesirable precedents.

Galler, who engaged in one of the first public (via letters to the editor of the JACM) debates of the issue of intellectual property, had other memorable quotes to offer on the subject. I'll dig 'em up and post 'em here. And hopefully, over at GNU as well.

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