🚀 go-pugleaf

I think at bottom my disagreement with Jyrki (I know he won't take
offense at my use of his first name; since it's so unique we all
know to whom i'm responding) is one of belief. I believe one's
intellectual creations, if unique and a contribution to others,
are 'property'. He may not.

One may dispose of such property as one sees fit (with a few exceptions).
Thus there are a group of people called "academics" who have a
set of practices about their intellectual creations. There's another
group of artists and writers who have another set. Note that even
those practices aren't universal--academics take out patents, and
writers get copyrights. But the reason some things are "free" is
that the creators have taken an individual decision to make
them free, not some universal moral principle.

There's no "truth" about whether RSA is entitled to compensation
outside the U.S. for their invention. There's law (which apparently
does not protect--which is a lot different from saying they're not
ethically entitled), and there's ethics, which arises from one's basic
assumptions.

I've made mine clear and Jyrki has made his clear. Since there's
no 'truth' about this, it's not going to get resolved, so I suggest
we leave the ethical discussion where it is and move on (as some
have pleaded), to SCI.crypt rather than VALUES.crypt.

Have people noticed that there's now an alt.security.ripem? Watch
it for developments real soon now.

David