Ignore SSSCA, risk becoming a 'federal felon, overnight'

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Thu Oct 4 01:32:56 PDT 2001


http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/02/1622228

(excerp)
The anti-SSSCA movement is building steam rapidly this week as an online
petition directed at lawmakers garners over 7,000 signatures in a little
over three weeks. "I'm hoping Congress will understand that the average
person thinks the government forcing policeware on their computers is
un-American and downright wrong, and that supporting the SSSCA will hurt
them when they run for re-election," says Don Pavlish, the mastermind behind
the petition and a new Web site called StopPoliceWare.org.
The potential SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act)
legislation is a serious threat to Open Source operating systems. As
reported by NewsForge last week, it could outlaw Linux because it calls for
proprietary copy-protection standards that wouldn't fly with the GPL.

"Millions of Linux users would be turned into federal felons overnight,"
Pavlish says. "The devastating impact on the Open Source community cannot be
overstated. Thousands of administrators, programmers, developers and others
would lose their jobs." And since Open Source software runs most of the
Internet, outlawing it would "turn the 'Net into just another playground for
big corporations that could afford the license fees."

(continued in article.... READ THIS!!!)

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/02/1622228



Related opinion piece on LinuxPlanet:
Bought and Paid For
The SSSCA: It's Nothing Personal
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3813/1/



More information about the LUAU mailing list