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Logiciels libres et Internet: points de repère
Quotes on Software Patents by the League for Programming Freedom (variant)
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others
of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an
idea,
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the
possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of
it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because
every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me,
receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights
his
taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe,
for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his
condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by
nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space,
without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in
which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of
confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising
from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may
produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the
will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from
any body.
--- Thomas Jefferson, letter
to Isaac McPherson, 1813, in Writings
of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6, H.A. Washington, Ed., 1854, pp. 180-181,
and as cited in Kock & Peden
Indeed, one of my major complaints about the computer field is
that
whereas Newton could say, "If I have seen a little farther than
others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants," I am
forced to say, "Today we stand on each other's feet." Perhaps the
central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to
get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others
rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different
way. Science is supposed to be cumulative, not almost endless
duplication of the same kind of things.
R. W. Hamming -- One Man's View of Computer Science -- 1968
Turing Award Lecture
Chacun en a sa part et tous
l'ont tout entier !
Victor Hugo - Les feuilles d'automne.
'Who owns my polio vaccine? The people! Could you patent the
sun?'
Jonas Salk (1914-1995), who developed the first effective
anti-polio
vaccine [soource: NewsScan Daily: October 20, 1999]
Auch wenn ich untergehe, lasst meine Bilder nicht sterben, zeigt sie den Menschen.
[ Même si je disparais, ne laissez pas mes peintures mourir, montrez-les aux hommes. ]
Felix Nussbaum, mort à Auschwitz en 1944. (Felix Nussbaum - Leben und Werk)
The right to search for truth
implies also a duty; one must not
conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.
[ Le droit de chercher la vérité implique aussi un
devoir; on
ne doit rien cacher de ce que l'on a reconnu comme vrai. ]
Albert Einstein, quote engraved on a memorial
outside the National Academy of Sciences offices in Washington.
Tout bien, toute
entreprise, dont l'exploitation a ou acquiert
les caractères d'un service public national ou d'un
monopole de fait, doit devenir la propriété de la
collectivité.
[ Any property, any enterprise, the running of which has or acquires
the character of a national public service or of a de facto monopoly, must become
public property. ]
Préambule de la
Constitution
du 27 octobre 1946 de la République Française,
repris dans la
Constitution
de 1958
The Congress shall have Power [...] To promote
Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to
Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries
[ Le Congrès aura Pouvoir [...] De promouvoir le Progrès de la Science et des Arts utiles, en assurant pour une Durée limitée aux Auteurs et aux Inventeurs les droits exclusifs sur leurs Écrits et Découvertes respectifs. ]
United
States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause8 - September 17th, 1787.
"If people had understood how
patents would be granted when most of
today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry
would be at a complete stand-still today. The solution ... is patent
exchanges ... and patenting as much as we can. ... {A future
start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever
price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high:
Established companies have an interest in excluding future
competitors.}"
[ "si les gens avaient compris comment se faire accorder des
brevets quand la plupart des idées actuelles furent
inventées,
l'industrie serait aujourd'hui totalement bloquée. La solution
... est l'échange de brevets ... et de breveter autant que nous
le
pouvons... {Une future jeune pousse dépourvue de brevets sera
contrainte de payer le prix que les géants lui imposeront. Ce
prix
pourrait être élevé : Les sociétés
existantes ont un intérêt à exclure
de futurs concurrents.}" ]
William Gates III, Challenges
and Strategy memo, May 16 1991,
reproduced in "The Patent Wars", Fred Warshofsky, 170-71 (NY: Wiley
1994).
Note: Though sometimes presented with the quote, the part
between
braces does not appear in the copy
I have of the memo. -- La partie entre accolades ne semble pas faire
partie du document original,
bien qu'elle soit souvent associée à cette citation.
La confusion est
entre "des programmes libres peuvent exister" et "un programme libre
n'aura pas de problème à exister". Pour decider si
le SIDA ou les brevets sont un problème, il faut compter les
morts, pas les vivants.
[ The confusion is between "free programs may exist" and "a free
program will have no problem existing". To decide whether AIDS or
patents are a problem, one should count the deads, not the survivors.]
Richard M. Stallman, courriel
à membres@aful.org, 16 août 2005 (original en
français).
Gates shed some light on his own
hard-nosed business
philosophy. "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in
China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they
will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to
steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow
figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
[Gates éclaira sa propre philosophie brutale des affaires. "Bien
qu'environ 3 millions d'ordinateurs soient vendus chaque année
en
Chine, en fait les gens ne paient pas pour le logiciel," dit il. "Un
jour ils le feront, pourtant. Si tant est qu'ils le volent, nous
voulons qu'ils volent le notre. Comme cela ils seront
accoutumés, et
alors nous trouverons bien un moyen de nous faire payer au cours de la
prochaine décennie."]
Conference at the University of Washington, reported by Corey
Grice and Sandeep Junnarkar in CNET News "Gates,
Buffett a bit bearish" *,
July 2, 1998.
"[The Internet] is the dynamic engine that is driving our
economy
today and we must keep that open"
Secretary of Commerce William H. Daley [New York Times, 16 Feb
2000]
We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough
consensus and running code.
Dave Clark, A Cloudy Crystal Ball/Apocalypse Now, July 1992,
24th annual
IETF conference.
We now see the potential for Linux to do for applications what
the internet did for networks.
Wladawsky- Berger (IBM), June 2000.
The relentless march of intellectual property rights needs to be
stopped and questioned.
[ La progression inexorable des droits de propriété
intellectuelle
doit être arretée et remise en cause. ]
UNDP, United Nations Development Program, "Human Development
Report 1999", Oxford University Press, 1999. http://www.undp.org/hdro/index2.html
KNOWLEDGE IS LIKE LIGHT. Weightless and intangible, it can
easily
travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet
billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty -
unnecessarily.
[ Le savoir est comme la lumière. Intangible et
immatériel, il
peut
se propager aisément à travers le monde, illuminant
l'existence de
chaque individu, où qu'il se trouve. Et pourtant des milliards
de gens
vivent toujours dans les ténèbres de la pauvreté -
sans nécessité. ]
The World Bank, "World Development Report 1998/99 -
Knowledge for Development - Summary", Washington, 1998/99.
... 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.
[ ... comme nous tirons grand bénéfice des
inventions d'autrui,
nous
devrions être heureux de toute occasion de faire
bénéficier les autres
de nos propres inventions; et nous devrions faire cela librement et
généreusement. - retraduit de l'anglais ]
The Private
Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D (known as The
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin), chapter X,
London, J. Parsons, 1793.
Mémoires de la Vie Privée de Benjamin Franklin,
écrits par
lui-même. Paris, Buisson, 1791.
(His reply when refusing a patent for his invention of a new stove)
They that can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.
[ Ceux qui peuvent abandonner une liberté essentielle en
échange
d'un peu de sécurité immédiate ne méritent
ni liberté ni sécurité. ]
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
The liberty of a democracy is not safe
if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it
becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its
essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or any controlling private power.
[ La liberté d'une démocratie n'est pas en
sécurité si le peuple tolère
la croissance du pouvoir privé au point que sa puissance
dépasse celle
de l'état démocratique lui-même. Cela, dans son
essence, est le
Fascisme - l'accaparement du gouvernement par un individu, par un
groupe, ou par tout pouvoir de contrôle privé. ]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the "Standard Oil"
Monopoly Investigation, 1938.
Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property
rights,
human rights must prevail.
[ Quand il y a conflit entre les droits de l'homme et les droits
de
propriété, les droits de l'homme doivent
prévaloir. ]
Abraham Lincoln, Quoted in Congressional Record, May 12, 1944.
La maîtrise des technologies n'est
pas séparable de la maîtrise des contenus.
Catherine Trautmann, Ministre de la Culture, Discours
au MILIA de Cannes, 8 février 1998.
On entend par standard ouvert tout
protocole de communication,
d'interconnexion ou d'échange et tout format de données
interopérable
et dont les spécifications techniques sont publiques et sans
restriction d'accès ni de mise en oeuvre.
Loi
du 21 juin
2004 pour
la confiance dans l'économie numérique, Titre
Ier, Chapitre Ier, Article 4.
Le businessman : Quand tu
trouves un diamant qui n'est à
personne, il est à toi. Quand tu trouves une île qui n'est
à personne,
elle est à toi. Quand tu as une idée le premier, tu la
fais breveter:
elle est à toi. Et moi je possède les étoiles,
puisque jamais personne
avant moi n'a songé à les posséder.
Le petit prince : Moi, je possède une fleur que
j'arrose tous
les jours. Je possède
trois volcans que je ramone toutes les semaines. Car je ramone aussi
celui qui est éteint. On ne sait jamais. C'est utile à
mes volcans, et
c'est aussi utile à ma fleur, que je les possède. Mais tu
n'es pas
utile aux étoiles...
[ The businessman: When you find a diamond that belongs to
nobody, it is yours. When you
discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get
an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is
yours. So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever
thought of owning them.
The little prince: I myself own a flower, which I
water every day. I own three
volcanoes, which I clean out every week (for I also clean out the one
that is extinct; one never knows). It is of some use to my volcanoes,
and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them. But you are of no
use to the stars... ]
Le petit
prince / The little
prince, ch. 13, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When counting the blessings of the Internet we should remember
that
neither Vinton Cerf nor CERN patented the Internet.
Commissioner Busquin, OECD Global Research Village Conference,
Amsterdam, December 2000.
The laws of physics seem to change when you enter a new environment, such
as the gravity field of the moon -- or the Internet and its easy replication of content. In this issue, we argue that the newly revealed physics
of information transfer on the net will change the economics and perhaps
ultimately the laws governing the creation and dissemination of intellectual property ... call it content to avoid the presumption of ownership.
Intellectual Property on the Net, Esther Dyson, Release 1.0, 12-94, Esther Dyson 's Monthly Report, 28 December 1994
... the lesser nations of the earth become colonies not of governments but of corporations ...
[ Les petites nations du globe ne sont plus colonisées par
des
gouvernements, mais par des sociétés. ]
Lewis Lapham, La montagne des Vanités - Les secrets de
Davos, page
28, Maisonneuve et Larose, 2000, http://www.maisonneuve-et-larose.com,
15 rue Victor-Cousin, 75005, Paris (France), http://vhf.msh-paris.fr/editeurs/ml/ml.html
The Agony of Mammon, Verso Books (New York); ISBN: 1859847102, 1998,
traduction Marie-José Capelle (2000)
Although in many ways bountiful and in some ways benign, the colossl mechanism that generates the
wealth of nations (a.k.a. "The Global Economy,"
"Moloch," and "The Invisible Hand") lacks the capacity for human
speech or conscious thought, a failing that troubles those of its upper servants who wish to believe that it is they who control the
machine and not the machine that controls them. Their amour propre
forbids them from picturing themselves mere stokers heaving
computer printouts and Montblanc pens (or shopping malls md
movie studios and Mexicans) into a blind, remorseless furnace. They
seek a more gracious portraiture (as masters of markets, captains of
commercial empire), and so, every year in late January, they make
their optimistic way from the low-lying places of the earth to the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where, high up on
the same alp that provided Thomas Mann with the setting for The
Magic Mountain, they brood upon the mysteries of capitalist creation.
[ Tous les ans, vers la fin janvier, ils quittent les basses
terres de
notre planète pour les cimes baignées d'optimisme du
Forum économique
mondial de Davos en Suisse. Et là, sur les hauteurs de ce sommet
qui
a fourni à Thomas Mann le cadre de la Montagne magique, ils
méditent
sur les mystères de la création capitaliste. "Ils" ? Les
chefs
mécaniciens de cette colossale machinerie - baptisée
"l'économie
mondialisée", "Moloch" ou "Dame Fortune" - qui engendre la
richesse
des Nations. Sans doute est-elle, à bien des égards,
source de
libéralités, voire de stabilité, elle n'en est pas
moins dépourvue des
principales facultés humaines, parler et
réfléchir. Les chefs
mécaniciens le savent, et parfois même cette
évidence les préoccupe,
mais, enflés d'amour propre, ils se plaisent à penser
qu'ils gardent la
maîtrise de leur machinerie et que ce n'est point elle qui les
domine.
Ils ne veulent pas se voir tels qu'ils sont, de simples factotums qui
entretiennent la chauffe d'une fournaise aveugle et impitoyable. Et
leur désir d'exister sous un jour plus glorieux - comme
opérateurs économiques ou capitaines d'industrie - est si
grand, qu'ils
gravissent tous les ans les pentes de Davos. ]
Lewis Lapham, La montagne des Vanités - Les secrets de
Davos, page
5 (début), Maisonneuve et Larose, 2000, http://www.maisonneuve-et-larose.com,
15 rue Victor-Cousin, 75005, Paris (France), http://vhf.msh-paris.fr/editeurs/ml/ml.html
The Agony of Mammon, Verso Books (New York); ISBN: 1859847102, 1998,
traduction Marie-José Capelle (2000)
The Net interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it.
John Gilmore, cited in many articles, such as:
Foucault In
Cyberspace by James Boyle, 1997.
Why
the Internet is Good - Community governance that works well,
Berkman Center Working Draft.
... partage des connaissances par le don des progrès
et non
le
paiement des brevets ...
Che Guevara, Alger, 24 février 1965.
cité dans "Les chroniques de l'histoire : Che Guevara",
éditions
Chroniques distribuées par Hachette.
"We want to build picket fences around the technologies that
we think
are most important for the future."
Jeff George, Vice President, Intellectual Property and
Standards,
AT&T. Abstract of presentation (in Technology Review), April 13th,
2000, MIT.
Intellectual property crime [...] can be linked to the
deadliest forms of organised crime.
Mr. Anthony Murphy, Director of Copyright at the UK Patent
Office, Keynote address at the AGM of the Publishers Association,
April 10 2001. Reported in a UKPO
press release.
A given amount of health impairing pollution should be done
in
the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the
lowest wages. [...] I've always though that under-populated countries
in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably
vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.
[ Une pollution donnée devrait être exportée dans
le pays où elle
coûte le moins, c'est-à-dire celui ayant les plus bas
salaires. [...]
J'ai toujours pensé que les pays sous-peuplés d'Afrique
sont largement
SOUS-pollués. La qualité de l'air y est d'un niveau
inutilement élevé
par rapport à Los Angeles ou Mexico. ]
Lawrence H. Summers, Chief economist for the World Bank, Memo,
December 12, 1991. (appointed the U.S. Treasury Secretary on July 2nd,
1999, named president
of Harvard University on March 11, 2001.
CBS Reporter Lesley Stahl (speaking of post-war sanctions against
Iraq):
We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean,
that's
more children than died in Hiroshima. And - and you know, is the price
worth it?
Madeleine Albright (at that time, US Ambassador to the UN): I think
this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the
price is worth it.
The exchange occurred in a "60 Minutes" segment, "Punishing Saddam"
(airdate May 12, 1996) - source: uncoverIraq
Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work
with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world
should be offered an alternative.
Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief technical officer speaking at
the 2002 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), reported in Microsoft's Mundie
slams Liberty at WCIT, by Jeanne-Vida
Douglas, ZDNet Australia, February 28, 2002.
I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia.
I wanted
to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture and
... kill them. I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a
confirmed kill.
Joker in Full
Metal Jacket, film by Stanley Kubrick, 1987.