How do you explain democracy and the founding fathers to a 3 year old? Tammy and I were discussing the current sadly comical SCO controversy. The latest twist of which being Darl McBride stating that to give information, along with copyrightable or patentable designs etc away for free, or allow them to be used for free was unconstitutional and against everything the founding fathers stood for. Of course this is utter nonsense.
An obvious counter to this is Benjamin Franklin:
“I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled “An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated,” etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov’r. Thomas was so pleas’d with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”
As I finished reading this quote to Tammy, which she instantly recognized as being a Ben Franklin quote, Johann said: “Let me get this straight! The founding fathers built a “mocracy” so they could share and build houses from computers.” Well, I’m not sure about the building houses from computers part, but the rest sounds pretty good to me! Those “mocracy guys” as he started calling them, did build a pretty good framework which encouraged and hopefully will continue to encourage the flow of information.