www/philosophy pirate-party.html

[Yavor Doganov]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Yavor Doganov <yavor>   09/07/24 07:25:59

Modified files:
        philosophy     : pirate-party.html 

Log message:
        Add extra space after periods and question marks to aid Emacs sentence
        motion commands.  Use HTML entities for dashes and quotation marks.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/pirate-party.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.1&r2=1.2

Patches:
Index: pirate-party.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/pirate-party.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -b -r1.1 -r1.2
--- pirate-party.html   23 Jul 2009 16:54:27 -0000      1.1
+++ pirate-party.html   24 Jul 2009 07:25:52 -0000      1.2
@@ -6,18 +6,18 @@
 
 <p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";>Richard Stallman</a></p>
 
-<p>The bullying of the copyright industry in Sweden inspired the launch
-of the first political party whose platform is to reduce copyright
-restrictions: the Pirate Party. Its platform includes the prohibition
-of Digital Restrictions Management, legalization of noncommercial
-sharing of published works, and shortening of copyright for commercial
-use to a five-year period. Five years after publication, any
-published work would go into the public domain.</p>
+<p>The bullying of the copyright industry in Sweden inspired the
+launch of the first political party whose platform is to reduce
+copyright restrictions: the Pirate Party.  Its platform includes the
+prohibition of Digital Restrictions Management, legalization of
+noncommercial sharing of published works, and shortening of copyright
+for commercial use to a five-year period.  Five years after
+publication, any published work would go into the public domain.</p>
 
 <p>I support these changes, in general; but the specific combination
 chosen by the Swedish Pirate Party backfires ironically in the special
-case of free software. I'm sure that they did not intend to hurt
-free software, but that's what would happen.</p>
+case of free software.  I'm sure that they did not intend to hurt free
+software, but that's what would happen.</p>
 
 <p>The GNU General Public License and other copyleft licenses use
 copyright law to defend freedom for every user. The GPL permits
@@ -26,10 +26,10 @@
 And all redistributors must give users access to the software's source
 code.</p>
 
-<p>How would the Swedish Pirate Party's platform affect copylefted free
-software? After five years, its source code would go into the public
-domain, and proprietary software developers would be able to include
-it in their programs. But what about the reverse case?</p>
+<p>How would the Swedish Pirate Party's platform affect copylefted
+free software?  After five years, its source code would go into the
+public domain, and proprietary software developers would be able to
+include it in their programs.  But what about the reverse case?</p>
 
 <p>Proprietary software is restricted by EULAs, not just by copyright,
 and the users don't have the source code. Even if copyright permits
@@ -41,10 +41,10 @@
 <p>So what would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright
 after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source
 code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the
-source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom.
-The program could even have a "time bomb" in it to make it stop
-working after 5 years, in which case the "public domain" copies would
-not run at all.</p>
+source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom.  The
+program could even have a &ldquo;time bomb&rdquo; in it to make it
+stop working after 5 years, in which case the &ldquo;public
+domain&rdquo; copies would not run at all.</p>
 
 <p>Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software
 developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it
@@ -53,16 +53,16 @@
 the bad, but not the good. The difference between source code and
 object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary
 software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year
-copyright -- one that free software does not share.</p>
+copyright &mdash; one that free software does not share.</p>
 
 <p>We also use copyright to partially deflect the danger of software
-patents. We cannot make our programs safe from them -- no program is
-ever safe from software patents in a country which allows them -- but
-at least we prevent them from being used to make the program
-effectively non-free. The Swedish Pirate Party proposes to abolish
-software patents, and if that is done, this issue would go away. But
-until that is achieved, we must not lose our only defense for
-protection from patents.</p>
+patents.  We cannot make our programs safe from them &mdash; no
+program is ever safe from software patents in a country which allows
+them &mdash; but at least we prevent them from being used to make the
+program effectively non-free.  The Swedish Pirate Party proposes to
+abolish software patents, and if that is done, this issue would go
+away.  But until that is achieved, we must not lose our only defense
+for protection from patents.</p>
 
 <p>Once the Swedish Pirate Party had announced its platform, free
 software developers noticed this effect and began proposing a special
@@ -88,17 +88,17 @@
 proprietary software's unofficial exception. Either way, the result
 is fair.</p>
 
-<p>A Pirate Party supporter proposed a more general variant of the first
-suggestion: a general scheme to make copyright last longer as the
-public is granted more freedoms in using the work. The advantage of
-this is that free software becomes part of a general pattern of
+<p>A Pirate Party supporter proposed a more general variant of the
+first suggestion: a general scheme to make copyright last longer as
+the public is granted more freedoms in using the work.  The advantage
+of this is that free software becomes part of a general pattern of
 varying copyright term, rather than a lone exception.</p>
 
-<p>I'd prefer the escrow solution, but any of these methods would avoid a
-prejudicial effect specifically against free software. There may be
-other solutions that would also do the job. One way or another, the
-Pirate Party of Sweden should avoid placing a handicap on a movement
-to defend the public from marauding giants.</p>
+<p>I'd prefer the escrow solution, but any of these methods would
+avoid a prejudicial effect specifically against free software.  There
+may be other solutions that would also do the job.  One way or
+another, the Pirate Party of Sweden should avoid placing a handicap on
+a movement to defend the public from marauding giants.</p>
 
 </div>
 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@
 <p>
 Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2009/07/23 16:54:27 $
+$Date: 2009/07/24 07:25:52 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>