Intellectual Property Extremism:

We are in the middle of the Intellectual Property Wars. This is sort of the Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century.

• Did you know that criminal charges were brought against a Linux user just for trying to do the good deed of giving away software to play DVDs?
• Did you know that if you design a Linux e-commerce application that requires too few mouse clicks that you may be committing a crime?
• Did you know that Linspire, a Linux company, is reconsidering a decision to distribute software over peer-to-peer networks because of the fear of legal retribution if they do?
• Did you know that Senator Berman of California recently proposed a bill that in some cases would make it legal for others to hack into your Linux PC without fear of liability?

You'd almost think the US government had declared war on Linux and open source!

I framed these points to emphasize their impact on the Linux community. Unfortunately, this war is wider than just some odd discrimination against geeks.

• Did you know that the Girl Scouts were sued for singing songs around camp fires because they wouldn't pay up?

I could go on and on with many more examples but you get the point.

This extremism is sometimes justified today with references to the sanctity of "property". Those who disagree are labelled as: "anti-property", "un-American" and "pirates". Such rhetoric is a ridiculous distortion of our history, the Constitution and common sense.

One severe handicap in fighting this war is that it is not quick and easy to understand the counter-arguments we need to make against such charges.

We'd all rather be talking about interesting Linux software and hardware at KPLUG meetings. If you can spare a short amount of your valuable time, I'll try my best to give you a worthwhile overview to enable you to talk intelligently about such matters and to prevent yourself and others from becoming casualties.

Most of this discussion will be "pirated" from Professor Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture .

Chris Seberino