David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com> writes:
I must agree with Lucky. I am quite sure that even if Netscape was not begin distributed over the net, copies would still be uploaded to international sites by folks practicing Civil disobedience.
To call simple lawbreaking by cowards working in secret "civil disobedience" is to defame the name of Gandhi, King, and all the legitimate protesters of modern history. Civil disobedience must be seen publicly, and must be done by observable individuals. Masked men throwing stink bombs is not civil disobedience--it's hooliganism.
As you can clearly see I did *not* suggest that the software needed to be uploaded anonymously. I agree that public disobedience has a much large impact than private disobedience, but I think the value of private disobedience is still positive. Uploading critical software which computer users can access accross the globe, important as it is, is not an ideal method of practicing (or mispracticing if you prefer) Civil Disobedience. The problem is that only a single copy only needs to be uploaded and only one person really gets "credit" for the upload. Better is something like Vince Cate's "Arms Trafficker" page: http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/ I am there at #172 striking a tiny but not invisible blow for freedom. 172 Mon May 6 7:56:39 1996 Ted Anderson <ota+@transarc.com> user-168-121-79-76.dialup.mindspring.com 168.121.79.76 Ted Anderson