--- Here's the official version of Godwin's law: http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Folklore/Humor/godwins.law --- Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 15:33:48 -0500 To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>, politech@private From: mnemonic <mnemonic@private> Subject: Re: [Politech] Criticisms of "HP and death of open PC" Politech post Cc: CSims@private >Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 11:20:49 -0500 >From: "Sims, Charles" <CSims@private> >To: declan@private > >Declan: you circulated today an appalling attack on HP's attempt to >protect itself and its customers which analogizes HP to the Nazis and >this policy to the Holocaust. "The dialog is beginning. Should we all >go quietly into the showers?" Don't attacks like that make you stop and >think? Sims is entirely correct to condemn the inapt comparison of HP's embrace of DRM-based platforms to Nazis and the Holocaust. Where he goes wrong is in characterizing HP's move as an "attempt to protect itself and its customers." The demand for hardware-implemented DRM in PCs is not coming from individual PC buyers; it's coming primarily from content companies that are pressuring platform makers to include DRM, and secondarily from corporate employers who like to have more control over what employees do on PCs in the workplace. Both of these demands, together with various legislative and regulatory initiatives also backed by content companies, are aimed at forcing PC makers to end the open PC as we know it. That will be a tragedy that, while certainly not at the level of the Holocaust, nevertheless ought to frighten those of us who recognize that open platforms such as the PC and the Internet have been the driving forces behind the personal-computer revolution. --Mike -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- "I speak the password primeval .... I give the sign of democracy ...." --Walt Whitman Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 202-518-0020 His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic . -------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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