🚀 go-pugleaf

David Warsh's column in yesterdays Boston Sunday Globe covered an
interesting topic which I think relates to the new legal restrictions
on programming.  Warsh takes the position that lawyers aren't all bad
but his position wasn't all that convincing after reading the
following: 

"...an economist has estimated how much he thinks lawyers are costing
America.  According to Stephen P. Magee, a professor of economics at
the University of Texas, American gross national product in the
mid-1980s was about 10 percent lower than it should have been.  This
$500 billion annual penalty translates into $1 million per lawyer in
forgone growth."

"Japan has few lawyers and high growth."

"Even if the ranks of lawyers were closed tomorrow, Magee says, it
would be 26 years before the ratio of lawyers to white-collar workers
would be the same as in Germany and 36 years to reach the low level of
Japan."

Now before anyone gets the wrong idea, I believe that lawyers do a lot
of good things.  Lawyers have had a helping hand in a lot of the laws
that we really cherish (e.g. Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, etc).  On
the other hand look-and-feel and software patent litigation are a
direct result of lawyers trying to make money for their clients (and
thereby enriching themselves).

What does this have to do with GNU, FSF or LPF?  I think we need to
convince our congress that look-and-feel and software patents are part
of a bigger problem within the U.S. that needs to be addressed and
quickly.  Our software industry has already proven in the 70s and 80s
that it can thrive without these new restrictions.  We shouldn't let
lawyers siphon off productivity from an extremely successful U.S.
industry.  If we can get congress to change the laws back to the way
they were in the 70s then we will no longer need the LPF and the FSF
can thrive.

Daniel Guilderson
ryan@cs.umb.edu