Reply to Richard Stallman

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >>   Sigh.  I did not say anything that Richard Stallman accuses me of.
Not one
    thing.  What's the point of talking about the creation and dissemination
of
    knowledge if we do not read carefully?

>My comment referred to the following statement:

    > Well, isn't this the whole point? I mean the ENTIRE point? The issue
of
    > intellectual property (or knowledge or whatever you want to call it)
    > dissemination has only a teeny weeny bit to do with its creation and a
huge
    > amount with actually calling things to people's attention. This is
what
    > publishers do.

>I read that text carefully and stated my views about it.  The
juxtaposition implies that enabling publishers to advertise justifies
copyright restrictions on our freedom.

>Precisely who wrote those words, whether it was you or someone else, I
don't know.  If it was not you, and if it doesn't state your views,
then please do not feel my response was aimed at you.

JE:  I have already replied separately to this to Mr. Stallman, but was not
aware that he had posted excerpts of this exchange to this list.  I hate to
bore anyone with this, but as these posts may live forever on a Web server
somewhere, what can you do?  Mr. Stallman quoted my words without the text
they were in response to, a post by Stevan Harnad.  My point (not
understood, apparently, by Mr. Stallman) was that publishers add value to
the process of the creation and dissemination of information and that in a
foreseen world without copyright, another method would have to be devised to
ensure that that added value continues to be put into the mix.  I consider
Mr. Stallman's remarks in his prior post to be personal in nature and I will
not reply further.

Joe Esposito