> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 11:50:45 +1000
> From: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: I can't believe this "discussion"
>
>
> Well thanks to Klaus & Luis for jumping into this discussion with a dose
> of reality, especially since the new listproc seems to hate me, really
> hate me, because my messages are taking 24+ hours to arrive. But whenever
> this truth bursts upon -- OK, I won't say the oblivious, because that
> would be name-calling, I'll say the, um, unrealistic -- I feel compelled
> to point out 3 obvious facts, before drawing my contributions on this
> silly topic to a close:
>
> 1. If an independent researcher knew in advance that his or her
> discoveries, if any, were slated to become instant "free knowledge," it is
> highly unlikely that the discoveries would be pursued in the first place.
> Few would or *could* devote a lifetime of labor with no expectation of
> recompense. (How many major discoveries have been made by Rockefellers?)
Researchers face this every day. They are working for salaries and do not
profit directly from their research. Corporations, governments, they profit.
Their motivation is one more personal.
The Rockefeller's have endowed a _very_ nice foundation which endows
others to act in their place.
> 2. Aside from the leap in magnitude from "gum bichromate by enlarger" to
> "the cure for Aids," which is like comparing a flea bite to the collision
> of galaxies, rest assured that whoever does discover the "cure for AIDS"
> will be handsomely enriched -- and that is an understatement of galactal
> proportions. I know well a few sufferers from AIDS and can attest that
> such ameliorations as exist so far are *VERY* well recompensed to the
> discoverers, the manufacturers, and their intermediaries, the doctors.
_Both_ anologies I used are correct. You haven't made a case against them.
> 3. In no society, even the most pathologically utopian, is the wish to be
> paid for labor considered "greed".
What is _just _ compensation and _who_ should be compensated? The
discoverer or his employer/master?
And why does my simple statement, "Knowledge should be free." bother you
so much?
Claude Seymour