On Tue, 2004-05-25 at 16:32, James Heald wrote:
... doesn't like his dead Africans analogy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/25/stallman_lecture/
I found that commentary strange. When I read it, I assumed RMS was
drawing a parallel between software patents blocking innovation and
pharmaceutical patents blocking healthcare - whereas, the Reg argument
seems to be more of a 'RMS Godwin'd himself by talking about AIDs in
Africa' if you see what I mean.
RMS's point read to me as a subtle 'patents can destroy communities' -
whereas they seemed to see it as an inflammatory 'stopping programmers
working is like letting Africans die', which I don't think (hope :) was
his point.
That said, even if he meant what I thought he did but was interpreted by
the Reg to mean something else, it probably was a bad analogy, probably
not one I would use personally (or could have been made more explicitly
about patents - but of course, without the original text, we don't know
what he said....)