I agree I was more shocked by the medical patents statement - but I actually agree (somewhat) with it — I don’t think that medicine can be done like say, linux (or gnu). For one thing, no one is trying to cure cancer on the way to getting something else done. Unlike a printer driver, the cure for AIDS won’t be a side effect of something you else you were trying to get done that day.

I actually typed quite a lot in this comment to talk about the art angle — but it got too big so I moved it to a post — it’s the new post up above.

Thanks so much for commenting…

You’re actually missing the more radical part of his speech (mainly in the Q&A session) as it was too fast (and weird) to take down notes on.

The rationale behind my quote of his about art (not actually a literal quote, but actually faithful to what he said) was that:
- if we’re talking about content/works/software that are needed, as tools, to reach other goals, they should be free
- art did not fall in the previous category
- art, as a subjective expression of one’s ideas/feelings, should not be changed by any means (e.g. Richard M. Stallman would not allow any derivative works of his writings not to go out of context, or find he’s being attributed things he did not actually said

The shocking part to me, indeed, was not the tool/art disctinction (which was shocking: where’s the line that separates one from the other one?) but the exceptionality that he granted to the medicaments industry.

Whenever I hear to Stallman, or to Eben Moglen (http://ictlogy.net/?p=737), I always think we share the same visions, and we desire the same kind of future, but they don’t really care (or know) how to pave the path to these visions and future.

And, well, practical issues do matter if we’d to achieve that future.