IP-WARS.NET || Prologue

Prologue

By JCausey, Section General Articles
Posted on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 19:45:50 EST

At the turn of the century (from the 20th to the 21st), much of the world was experiencing a major shift as the Industrial Age was coming to an end and the Information Age began to rise up in its place. During the early years of this change, the corporations ruled. And during this time, they mainly battled with each for supremacy. Battles were won and lost in boardroom and courtroom decisions.

And what was the prize? It was a new "gold" known as intellectual property. Now, this intellectual property (IP) took many forms, but many would contend that at the very root of all IP was thought. So the corporations would fight to protect their own IP, to hoard up all the IP they could, and to destroy other's IP in an effort to be a success.

But, while these large corporations were fighting and battling amongst themselves, there was an "underground" that formed. These individuals believed thoughts should be free to be built upon and improved upon. For many years these individuals fought their battles on the fringes. Alas, things change.

This underground movement began to gain momentum. And with this momentum, they were able to develop new tools and new methods to battle the corporations and others who were trying to suppress their rights to free thought. Aided by these advances, the efforts of the underground slowly started spreading into the mainstream. At some point, though they tried to deny it for a long time, the corporations began to realize the underground had become much larger and stronger than they had imagined.

Now, some of the corporations saw the work of the underground and realized it represented an opportunity. Some who may not be so cynical even suggest the individuals in some of these corporations shared the same beliefs as the underground. At the same time, many corporations saw what the underground had done and were threatened by it. And so the battles began to shift as corporations and individuals began to align themselves with the "free" side or with the "closed" side.

A watershed event occurred in 2003 when a company now known as SCO decided to sue IBM. Their claims struck at the very heart of some of the tools the free side availed themselves of. Perhaps more than any other event, this drew together free side supporters from around the world in an effort to defend this attack. In this effort, the free side supporters discovered the value of the principles they believed as applied to other activities like legal or financial research.

This brings us to today. While the SCO v. IBM (and a host of other lawsuits involving SCO) battle is still being fought, many feel victory is imminent for IBM. During what can be described as a lull in the war, the free side elements have had a chance to regroup and rethink strategy and tactics. It is clear bigger and more serious weapons may be deployed by the large corporations that are fearful of the free movement.

Thus, our story begins...........

MPAA to Sue 200 Filesharers (10 comments) >

Prologue | 29 comments (28 topical, 1 editorial, 6 hidden)

Re: Good work (4.00 / 6) (#10)
by warmcat on Thu Nov 4th, 2004 at 01:50:35 EST
(User Info) http://yah.warmcat.com

This is looking very very encouraging! I particularly appreciate the "Comments Reminder" - one thing you could add it to tell folks if they post junk they can expect it not to be read thanks to the scoring (YES!! SCORING!!! The dawn of a new day).

Yah seems pretty redundant here, it is modern software already, any new features should probably go direct into Scoop and not Yah.

Anyway a great start!

Feature request (4.00 / 3) (#11)
by mjpieters (ip-wars _AT_ zopatista _DOT_ com) on Thu Nov 4th, 2004 at 05:51:40 EST
(User Info)

Just to get you started, here is your first publicly posted feature request: an RSS feed. The mission statement does mention it, but there is as yet no link to one.

Please? Thanks!

Martijn Pieters of Zopatista
Martijn Pieters of Zopatista

Re: Feature request by JCausey, 11/04/2004 08:40:10 EST (3.50 / 2)

The lack of a commons (3.80 / 5) (#7)
by hgc (hgcSPAM@SUXsymuli.com) on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 22:36:18 EST
(User Info) http://www.symuli.com/

is what really gave birth to the Free software movement.

As software became a proprietary product, the source code was hidden away in the catacombs of the Cathedrals. Changes to copyright law extended the copyright monopoly to durations that are ludicrous for software. When software is no longer copyrighted, how do you get its source code? We don't know, no software has had its copyright expire in my lifetime.

There was no public domain commons to build on in the modern software world. The BSD/MIT/etc. licensed code was all we had. And these licenses allowed the Cathedral method folks to improve and hide some more.

Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation to address this issue. Some may disagree with his philosophy, but he certainly deserves credit for providing a framework that has provided a very robust commons for software.

Consider that the purpose of copyright as defined in the constitution is to provide a robust commons. It isn't working. FOSS provides a way to route around that deficiency.

Thank You for the shiney new site.

I thought I'd try to give a thoughtful post as my first of hopefully many contributions. (Yeah, what was I thinking?)
--
© 2004,5 Harry G. Clayton
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer

Re: Prologue (3.00 / 3) (#5)
by tomas (IPW at TiJiL.org) on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 22:05:03 EST
(User Info) http://TiJiL.org/SCO/

Good luck on this!

It feels like the start of a Gibson novel.
-- Tomas (engr. ret.)

Thanks and good luck. (3.00 / 2) (#6)
by edlin user (edlin_user AT yahoo DOT com) on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 22:28:45 EST
(User Info)

>>>
Thus, our story begins...........
>>>

I like that and your Comments Reminder as well.
A vulcan toast to you:
"Live long and proper."

---
The Commons, where you meet the nicest people.

Re: Prologue (3.00 / 1) (#8)
by stats4all on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 23:03:21 EST
(User Info)

Best of luck with your new endeavor !

Re: Prologue (3.00 / 2) (#12)
by BritTim on Thu Nov 4th, 2004 at 08:16:16 EST
(User Info)

Just have time now to offer congratulations on the launch of this site. It looks promising. I shall make my next post more substantial!

Re: Prologue (2.50 / 6) (#1)
by heimdal31 (heimdal31_ip_warsNO@SPAM.threenorth.com) on Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 20:45:46 EST
(User Info) http://www.threenorth.com/sco

frist post!

---Tim Rushing

Re: Prologue by br3n, 11/03/2004 20:49:14 EST (2.33 / 3)
Re: Prologue by Potential Recruit, 11/03/2004 21:03:42 EST (2.33 / 3)

Re: Prologue (2.50 / 2) (#14)
by dwh97007 on Thu Nov 4th, 2004 at 14:47:08 EST
(User Info)

Looks good. Hopefully I will have some time to play with it tonight.

Thanks for the work.

Dave

Looks like a great start (1.00 / 1) (#9)
by bbotrsh on Thu Nov 4th, 2004 at 00:26:35 EST
(User Info)

Hi Br3n.

Bye bye spambot (1.00 / 2) (#21)
by Potential Recruit on Mon Nov 27th, 2006 at 13:50:07 EST