To whom it may concern,
I was reading your paper "Is Open Source Software a threat to Future Intellectual Property Rights," and was quite shocked to find the following error. In the paper you claim:

"As unlikely as this might seem to the skeptic, the National Security Agency (NSA), that coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information, made the folly of developing GPL-licensed code to improve the Linux operating system. After reading the terms of the Linux GPL, the NSA realized they needed to post this enhancement to the Internet in source code form for the world to see."

First of all there no such thing as the "Linux GPL." There is the GNU GPL, which many distributions of Linux are published under. This seems a rather large mistake for a PAC specializing in IP to make. Furthermore, the claim that the GPL in some way requires you to post publicly any modifications to GPL-code is completely false. In fact, a specific section of the Frequently Asked Questions of the GPL addresses this issue. From the GNU GPL FAQ: (available at:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html)

"The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization. But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you."

How could you make such a a blatant mistake? How do you conduct research at your organization? Even a cursory glance at the license would have shown this. Do you have such little faith in our Government agencies to imagine that they wouldn't have a horde of lawyers examine a license before using it? And yet, you, a organization who claims to protect my property rights didn't a) already know this, or b) do the trivial amount of research to learn it?

I utterly offended by your complete lack of fundamental research in this paper. To make the baseless claim that the GPL or Linux are some kind of evil things that have weakened National Security and manipulated our government is completely absurd. I am extremely interested how this gross mistake was missed by your editors and fact-finders, and made it into publication. I eagerly await your reply.

I'll be speaking on a legal panel at The 5th Hope in NYC . I fly in Thursday, and leave Monday. which gives me a day or so of dedicated site-seeing. Anyone have any recommendations?

The Fifth HOPE - Speaking

] # Presidential Powers: "To protect subordinates should they
] be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue
] a 'presidential directive or other writing' that could serve
] as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is
] 'inherent in the president.'"

Why is everyone so surprised by this? Have you not read what the Project for the New American Century Stands for?

"Yeah, screw those surrender monkey frogs" the public said when Bush told the UN to screw itself and that he was going to war. We shouldn't be tied down by the UN, we are superior to the UN.

Why are you surprised that this same administration also thinks it is above things like US laws, the Supreme Court, International treaties?

RE: More really bad shit

Those are a lot of boats that will be leaving. Yet we are staying until the start of 2006? Not that it will have much impact, by my count 124,000 of the 147,729, or 84% of all the personal in Iraq are US anyway.

BTW only 15 of the coalition members, some 31% have a GDP per capita of $10,000.
(http://www.areporter.com/sys-tmpl/thecoalitionofthewilling/).

And you don't really think most of these countries would be pleging support unless they got something in return do you? (Yes the link is old, but still informative)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2003-02-25-unwilling.htm

Coalition Memebers: How many troops, when are they leaving

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.

...

For what it's worth in the debate over the shells.

Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War

I hate to deeplink webcomics, but this was so good I had to make sure the link stayed.

Perfect!

Yes, and also Germany in the 1930s

] The peace agreement, reached over the weekend, involved
] 150 members from several gang factions and laid out a
] 10-point plan including an immediate cease-fire.
]
] The plan also asks gang members to refrain from using
] gang hand signals, graffiti or other symbols to incite
] the killing of rivals.
]
] Under the truce, gang members also vowed to designate
] places like schools, churches and parks as neutral zones
] and to avoid encroaching on each other's territory
] without notice.

This is surreal

These are teenagers doing their best to kill other teenages in the process killing other people by mistake, all so the surviving teenagers can sell more drugs that in turn kill more people!

And the mayors office is basically endorsing this "truce" that says the gangs have agreed to kill each other/sell drugs in the designated areas only.

What a messed up world we live in.

Crips and Bloods gangs agree to truce

] Since it is clear that we cannot leave until they stop
] killing us, and equally clear that they will not stop
] killing us until we leave, I propose the following exit
] strategy:
] 1) Kill all the ones who are trying to kill us, in
] such a way that none of those who presently do not want
] to kill us suddenly start wanting to kill us.
] 2) At the moment of the death of the last person who
] wanted to kill us, race quickly out of the country before
] some additional person suddenly decides he/she wants to
] kill us, thus necessitating our continued presence in
] Iraq, in order to kill him/her.
] 3) Having left Iraq quickly, do not look back, so as
] not to witness individuals claiming they would have liked
] to kill us, which would then necessitate a return to
] Iraq, in order to etc., etc. (See No. 2, above.)

Good ole Slate. Better before MSN, but they are currently showing a surprising amount of Kerry support. This particular article is very tongue-in-cheek, so don't get your knickers in a bunch. :-)

-janelane

How to leave Iraq in three simple steps.

] So what were we to do when we in America were attacked on
] September 11, that infamous day? I say we should have
] done then what we never did before: stop speaking to the
] people we labelled our enemies and start listening to
] them. Stop giving preconditions to our peaceful
] coexistence on this small planet, and start honouring and
] respecting every human's need to live free and
] autonomously, to truly respect the sovereignty of every
] state. To stop making up rules by which others must live
] and then separate rules for ourselves

This is rather similar to Marilyn Manson's repsonse of what he would say to the Columbine Students: "I wouldn't say a single word to them, I would listen to what they have to say and that's what no one did."

George Bush never looked into Nick's eyes

] These photos show us what we may become, as occupation
] continues, anger and resentment grows and costs spiral.
] There's nothing surprising in this. These pictures are
] pictures of colonial behavior, the demeaning of occupied
] people, the insult to local tradition, the humiliation of
] the vanquished. They are unexceptional. In different
] forms, they could be pictures of the Dutch brutalizing
] the Indonesians; the French brutalizing the Algerians;
] the Belgians brutalizing the people of the Congo.

An exceptional article

washingtonpost.com: A Wretched New Picture Of America